Consistent quality boosted with LAMBS price rise

Gross margins per ewe are up by nearly £10 in the LAMBS (Learning Advances in Management and Breeding with Suffolks) initiative staged at Greenmount and Enniskillen campuses in Northern Ireland.

While increased returns are due to improved lamb prices, Greenmount campus sheep technologist, Dr Steven Johnston says the initiative continues to demonstrate the successful formulation of early lamb production using recorded Suffolk rams.

"For 2002 improved lamb prices, averaging £2.79 per head, is an increase of 44 pence/ KG carcase weight, compared to the previous year." he outlines.

Dr Johnston explains: " The variable costs of producing a kilo of lamb carcase weight for the early lamb market has increased when compared to the previous year. This is mostly due to fewer lambs marketed per ewe in lamb. However, with the increase in subsidies, the direct costs after subsidy have remained similar at £1.06 pence/ KG carcase weight. The direct costs are the variable plus replacement costs."

"One of the objectives of the initiative is to adopt new technology in the selection, planning and implementation of breeding. This year we have seen a slightly reduced ewe performance, which was 0.13 lambs reared/ewe lower than the target of 1.55. This may have been a consequence of foot and mouth restrictions on the movement of rams, which resulted in rams being placed with batches of greater than 8 ewes at mating time." Dr Johnston explains.

Nevertheless carcase quality of lambs has been maintained with all lambs grading E, U, and R. This illustrates the Suffolk's ability to produce consistently high quality lambs. And with lambs averaging 20.8 KG in 106 days to slaughter their ability to grow is endorsed too.