Posted: 7 September 2022

The TGM Summer Sale!

Take advantage of the last chance to buy an AWR300 reader and get £50 OFF in our Summer Sale! Click here to buy.

Get Ahead with Select Sheepware 

Tupping Time –  Rams to be used this year should be added to the software.  Tupping groups need to be created with the correct ram(s) in each group.  The tupping groups transfer into the Agrident readers and are then in the drop down list for selection when scanning the ewes which go to each tupping group. It’s important to get this job done and out of the way before tupping starts. We’re on hand to help to get everything set up properly.  Allocating the tups to the ewes at tupping time means the lambs inherit the correct sire when the birth records come off the reader next spring.

This is the ideal time to do some Select Sheepware housekeeping!
Clear out sheep records from the system where the sheep are no longer in use.
It’s straightforward to weed out the sheep that should be marked as gone from the flock. For example, you can filter all ewes where the last lambing date is earlier than 2022.  If you know that all the ewes on the farm gave birth this year and that anything which did not give birth is no longer on the farm then it is easy to mark those sheep as gone from the flock.  Likewise, if you have weighed your ewes before tupping,those weighing records can be used to reconcile the ewes which are in the flock and the ewes which are no longer present

For users who are measuring ewe production efficiency, the ewes need to weighed as close to tupping as possible.  The software will check back once the lambs are born, for a weight close to the conception date. This weight will be used to calculate ewe efficiency. Ewe efficiency is calculated as a percentage where for example a 75 kg ewe producing 75 kg lamb at 90 days has a 90 day lamb efficiency of 100%. With more and more focus on efficiency and the carbon footprint of livestock, the more efficient ewes will have a smaller carbon footprint per kg of lamb produced than the less efficient ewes.  It will help the case for farmers as we move forward in the new carbon footprint era, to have calculated figures available to show that every best effort is being made to reduce the carbon footprint of livestock farming.  Measurement of ewe efficiency is one way to do this.  In addition, the more efficient ewes have less cost per kg of lamb produced and are therefore more profitable!