Paradise farmers boost lamb performance with 'forward thinking' early weaning

A young Paradise sheep farming couple have boosted lamb performance with early weaning.

Maja and Lenny Polkinghorne run CWS Prime Lamb Sires and turn off 250 White Suffolk rams a year.

They also run a flock of 1000 commercial Merino ewes and this year, due to the dry season, weaned their White Suffolk-sired lambs far earlier than normal.

The result has been much better than expected with quality feed, solid lamb management and the right genetics all playing their part.

The couple feel more farmers could learn from their trial and Ms Polkinghorne has taken to social media to document it all.

She said the struggle farmers were facing over the past 18 months drove her on and she wanted to help put the power back in farmers' hands.

She said both in 2024 and again this year, the season pulled up short at Paradise.

They had 750 lambs born in March and April, and by the time May came around, they were out of feed.

Rather than running the lambs on the ewes for another few weeks, they decided to bite the bullet and pulled them in May, before marking.

"We weaned them before we marked them," Ms Polkinghorne said.

"Anything around five weeks, you'll be ok."

She said marking after weaning was "much less stressful" for the lambs who could then recover with ample feed access and not be following ewes around the paddock hungry.

"They can sleep and rest," Ms Polkinghorne said.

The lambs were broken up into mobs of 250 and introduced to grain and then the feeders over a 10 day process.

She said a 20 minute time commitment morning and night for these 10 days was all that was needed to kick the weaned lambs off, with the first five days spent hand-feeding and movement on to feeders from there.

Ms Polkinghorne said even young lambs had a functioning rumen and early weaning and feeding was just about getting that rumen into gear early.

She said this allowed early growth, something the White Suffolk was bred for, rather than dragging lambs on into older ages when a season tapped out.

"I'm always telling people to feed early," she said.

"Let them grow now, don't postpone it and capitalise on their ability for early growth."

Ms Polkinghorne said while the lambs were initially slow to get moving, due to colder winter conditions, recovering from marking and picking up the pace on feed, they were still putting on 150-250g a day early on.

Now that they are going full throttle, they are gaining up to 400 grams a day, and are well on track to be sold as suckers.

"For a lamb to hit 50-55 kilograms by six months is very good going," she said.

"Despite the crappy season, they'll get there, no worries."

Her view was that if you're going to feed lambs, you might as well feed the right lambs the right feed and this was where the White Suffolk genetics came in.

"If you're going to have full revs, you'd rather have a Ferrari and put it in fifth gear," she said.

"If you're going to feed sheep, you might as well have sheep that you can feed at full tilt."

Ms Polkinghorne encouraged all farmers to be "forward thinking" in this way.

She said rather than accepting a bad year or poor season, farmers should adapt and make their own season.

To help farmers take control of the season, rather than the other way around, the couple held an on-farm early weaning information event in late June, supported by McKean McGregor Livestock, supplement company AIM and Wheelhouse AGnVET.

Ms Polkinghorne said more than 110 farmers attended, with plenty eager to hear then and since about their approach with their lambs.

She said taking the lambs off the ewes earlier and grain training them in containment not only ensured that the lambs grew, it:

• Removed the need for supplementary feeding ewes
• Allowed for optimum grass growth and lamb growth at the same time
• Minimised the time spent doing ineffective work like travelling to and from paddocks doing daily feeds

"The biggest takeaway message is control what you can," Ms Polkinghorne said.

"Don't wait for a 'good year' - make your own and when a good year does come around, it won't just be good for you, it will be phenomenal."