“The biggest gain has been no late lambs and they are all even in size…we sell more lambs earlier at a heavier weight.”
Steve and Mardi James run ‘Viewbank’ at Bungeet in North East Victoria, with Steve’s parents Doug and Jan.
The farm is devoted to prime lamb production, with 2,300 first cross ewes joined to poll dorset rams. They crop oats, rye and clover to support their production needs.
After scanning in February, they used to rejoin between 200-300 dry ewes. This late lambing mob became a big inconvenience. When spring finished early, they needed more time to manage and it was often hard to get the lambs up to target weight.
“We were initially interested in using Regulin to get more lambs” says Steve “but the opportunity to tighten our lambing period became our main focus.”
In September 2015, the James’ implanted all their ewes, including 650 maidens. The sheep were joined for eight weeks from 10 November.
“With Regulin, our percentage of pregnant ewes increased, as did the number of twins in our mature ewes. Our percentage of dry ewes fell from over 20 per cent to just seven per cent, so we sold them instead of rejoining” said Steve.
“The biggest gain has been no late lambs and they are all even in size. We can maxmise our feed to support our early weaning program of 10-12 weeks and sell more lambs earlier at a heavier weight.”
