N.B. beef-turned-sheep farm taps into local lamb market
/by George Fullerton
Brandy Richardson and Tom Tompkins with a young lamb on their farm in Bannon, N.B. (George Fullerton photos)
Tom Tompkins and Brandy Richardson of Bannon, N.B., decided in 2019 to take their farming operation in a different direction. So they sold off their Charolais-Simmental cows and invested in 70 Rideau Arcott-Ile de France F1 ewes.
Tompkins is the fifth generation on the family farm in Bannon, which is north of Hartland.
Their 70 ewes are divided into three breeding groups, with plans to eventually have four. They say staggering the breeding groups allows them to spread out labour requirements, expenses, and cash flow.
The ewes were purchased from Noel Legere’s farm in Shediac, N.B.
“I liked the vigour that F1 female crosses provided our beef operation, and I figured an F1 cross in sheep would provide the same traits,” said Tompkins. “Rideau Arcott provides multiple births and high milk production while the Ile de France breed brings strong carcass traits. We cross our ewes with both Rideau Arcott and Ile de France rams to maintain crossbred traits in our own ewe lamb replacements.”
This year, the couple is raising a new group of around 85 ewes to expand the flock. They’ll select about three-quarters of that group for breeding this July. They also plan to buy an additional 20 F1 lambs from Legere this year.
Housing was a matter of installing portable gating in the post and beam barn that used to shelter the cow-calf herd. Tompkins explained that the barn had been used by his grandfather to house livestock for a mixed farm operation prior to his parents converting it for their cow-calf operation.
The old barn creaks and shudders in the blustery March wind, but it continues to serve as livestock housing.
With a growing sheep operation, Tompkins and his father Raymond have been harvesting logs and sawing lumber to construct a new 24-by-48-foot barn, with a plan to expand it once it’s filled it up.
CONFINEMENT PRODUCTION
Tompkins and Richardson both lean toward having a confinement production operation. Tompkins said predator attacks are one concern. He added that breeding and lambing can be better managed in a confinement system. And he thinks intensive forage and corn crop management is more advantageous than pasture management. However, the couple doesn’t rule out day grazing if forage and crop production are compromised.
“As the forage crops underperformed in 2020, we soon realized that we would not have sufficient forage supply to feed through the winter,” said Tompkins. “We had some grass in fields close to the barn, so we decided to try strip grazing them just to extend our feed supplies. We got some temporary fencing (fibreglass step-in posts) and sectioned off a strip with two strands of electric string. The sheep worked well with it. We provided a new strip daily and left a laneway to the barn for watering.”
He said the grazing period did extend their forage supply.
Asked about their predator concerns, Richardson said, “We brought the whole flock into the barn for the night. They got used to that routine and we didn’t have to worry about predators.”
“With the beef herd, we always grew some corn and fed it as green chop in the autumn, and also ensiled a bit as the season got wet,” said Tompkins. “We were not sure how the sheep would do with chopped corn, but we soon found out they like it as well as the cows did. We chop the corn in our (cleaned up) manure spreader and then unload it on clumps across their paddock and they love it.”
Tompkins thinks that corn will continue to be a part of their production program, mainly because it provides a forage insurance program as drought and low grass yields seem to be more common.
A provincial veterinarian conducts pregnancy checks 60 days after ram exposure. Each bred ewe is separated from the main flock as her lambing date approaches and is fed rolled barley or grain corn to give her a boost. As lambs are born, mothers and lambs are separated to smaller “jug pens” to ensure bonding and mothering is going smoothly.
“With some ewes, it only takes a number of hours for good bonding,” said Tompkins. “With others, it’s sometimes a couple days until we are sure the ewe and lambs are ready to join their group.”
In the cases of triplets and quadruplets, two lambs are left with the ewe and the extras are held in a separate pen and bottle fed. Nursing ewes are fed a 35 percent protein pellet ration, some whole barley, and dry hay.
EARLY CARE AND TAGGING
Lambs are given a selenium shot and a navel dip at birth. Lambs are tagged with the ewe’s number and a letter for their birth position (A, B, C, etc.). Lambs are later tagged with a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag.
When the ewes and their two nursing lambs are back in the group pen, the lambs have access to a creep feeder that provides a medicated starter ration. Bottle-fed lambs also get a creep ration and join the fattening lamb pen when they reach about 25 pounds.
The lamb ration is whole barley or grain corn and soybean meal.
The lambs are weaned at about six weeks of age. The weaning process allows visual contact and limited physical contact through pen panelling, which eases the weaning stress somewhat.
The lambs eventually move out of the lambing pen as the next lambing group of ewes approach their lambing dates. The weaned lambs move into another pen in the barn and are fed a ration of rolled barley or grain corn and a little dry hay.
“Lambs grow really well on grain corn, but this year the price has jumped to the $315-per-tonne range, so we have opted to use whole barley and soybean meal,” said Tompkins.
At the conception stage of their sheep operation, Richardson and Tompkins decided that their location in the upper Saint John River Valley positioned them to truck their fat lambs either to the Northumberland Lamb Marketing Co-operative’s abattoir in Bible Hill, N.S., or to Quebec markets.
“We have been very surprised to discover that there is a consistent and strong demand from local butchers for our lambs,” said Tompkins. “We regularly get calls from butcher shops for lambs and they come to us to pick them up. The demand has been so great that we see a lot of our lambs selling at 80 pounds rather than the usual finish weight at 100 to 120 pounds. We don’t mind shipping 80-pound lambs because there are added costs and added risk with finishing at higher weights. As long as their markets want 80-pound lambs, we are happy to supply them.”
