Reducing labour requirement on your farm

It is often said “there is a lot of work in sheep” but trying to put an exact figure on how much labour is required on a sheep farm is very difficult. There are a number of variables that will affect labour requirement but likewise there are a number of ways in which it can be reduced.

Although sheep prices have been good in recent years, increases in input costs have kept a cap on the profitability of sheep farming and so it is important that sheep farmers consider their profitability per hour worked as well as overall farm profitability. A study of labour demand on Irish sheep farms (Connolly, 2000) found that, along with flock size, good housing and handling facilities had the biggest effect on labour requirement. There are numerous ways sheep farmers can reduce the workload involved with sheep and we will discuss some of them in this article.

Housing facilities need to be carefully planned to allow for ease of feeding of both forage and concentrates. For larger flocks machinery such as a diet feeder, bale unwinder or straw blower could significantly reduce the labour required for feeding and bedding sheep and for smaller flocks it may simply be a case of all ewes having sufficient feeding space for one person to feed forage and concentrates without having to enter the pen. Housing of ewes usually ends with the ewe being let out to grass post lambing following a short stint in an individual lambing pen. It will significantly reduce work load if lambing pens are situated in the same shed as the group pens and failing that as close as possible to reduce stress on the ewe and the farmer when moving the ewe and her lambs.

Despite being essential in many sheep systems, individual pens can have a big labour demand so it is important to reduce this where possible. The first step is to prioritise access so that each pen can be easily accessed to move ewes and lambs in and out but also to allow for ease of cleaning, aiming to reduce the amount of work to be done by hand. The workload with individual pens can also be reduced by simplifying the feed and water supply. Group hay racks can reduce the need for filling a small rack for each pen and the option to feed concentrates without entering the pen will also save time. The traditional method of placing a bucket of water in each pen is time consuming and can also carries the risk of lambs drowning or ewes knocking the bucket over and wetting her bedding. A simple solution (pictured below) is to set up a six inch water pipe with a hole cut in each pen to allow the ewe to access the water. The pipe can be filled from one end or a ballcock can be fitted to maintain the water level. This system, once set up, will significantly reduce the time spent supplying water to ewes.

Lambing accounts for approximately one fifth of the annual labour requirement so it is an area where significant gains can be made. The first step is to have a plan in place and a good starting point is to have a checklist of all the items needed for lambing. This should include everything from lambing equipment to veterinary supplies and feed, having this checklist in place will mean you are ready for all eventualities and will also rule out unnecessary trips to your local vets/co-op during an already busy time. Having ewes grouped by lambing date and by litter size will not only improve flock management but will also allow you to focus your time on the priority ewes especially triplet and single bearing ewes where the hope is to foster triplet lambs onto single bearing ewes.

Handling facilities are another key area where the battle can be won or lost with regard to flock labour requirement. A survey of Irish sheep farmers (Bohan et al., 2017) found that only 54% had a handling unit so there is significant room for improvement. A handling unit doesn’t need to be overly elaborate but should have a race system to allow dosing and handling of sheep without having to catch them individually, as well as, the facilities to footbath and draft sheep. A permanent handling unit will reduce the workload setting up a holding pen each time the flock is gathered but alternatively there are excellent mobile handling units on the market which may be more suitable for a fragmented farm.

Having a flock health plan in place can allow you to plan ahead and group treatments meaning the sheep need to be gathered and handled less. For example planning vaccination programmes to coincide with worm/fluke doses and drafting of lambs would reduce the number of times the flock are gathered. This can be difficult to plan as various health issues can crop up unexpectedly but the aim here should be to get multiple tasks carried out on the flock each time they are in the handling facility. If frequent gathering is unavoidable, such as weekly drafting of lambs for slaughter, it may be an option to separate a small group of lambs nearing drafting weight for weekly weighing and leave lighter lambs in a separate group which need much less frequent weighing. This would reduce the number of lambs being gathered and put through the handling unit unnecessarily.

Good fencing is essential on all sheep farm and poor fencing can create a lot of hardship and additional work. Good fences will allow the farmer to improve flock management, improve grass quality and utilization and in turn increase flock performance. Good fencing will also remove the opportunity for escapee sheep which create three new sources of labour requirement. Firstly the time it takes to gather the sheep, secondly the time to patch up the fence to prevent further escapes and finally you may have additional management actions needed if sheep have mixed with other groups and even more headaches if there has been mixing of males and females.

Many aspects of sheep farming involve hard physical labour and a lot of the time consuming tasks are unavoidable but with careful planning and a few facility upgrades you could significantly reduce the labour requirement of your flock.

BOHAN, A., SHALLOO, L., CREIGHTON, P., BOLAND, T., & MCHUGH, N. (2017). A survey of management practices and flock performance and their association with flock size and ewe breed type on Irish sheep farms. The Journal of Agricultural Science, 155(8), 1332-1341.

CONNOLLY, L. (2000). Labour on sheep farms. In Proceedings of the 27th meeting of the Irish Grassland and Animal Production Association, p. 82. Kells, Co. Meath, Ireland: Irish Grassland and Animal Production Association.