West Country Lleyn Breeders Club open day

On 31 July 80 sheep farmers visited Reuben Saunders' farm at Garsdon, near Malmesbury.

Reuben is a tenant farmer currently operating across 450 acres on four main sites. He started his sheep enterprise 10 years ago, buying in excellent foundation stock including 'Lleyn Legend', Charles Sackville Hamilton’s ewe flock.

The enterprise has expanded and now consists of 450 MV Accredited, Signet-recorded Lleyn ewes lambed outside, small pedigree herds of 20 South Devon and 15 Hereford cattle and 80 store cattle.

His focus is on breeding efficient, functional, performance recorded, grass-fed livestock to maximise production whilst optimising grazing strategies to minimise environmental (methane, CO2) impact and, at the same time, reducing the need for hard feed.

All the land that Reuben rents is tenanted without the benefit of subsidy, so the stock have to be efficient to maintain a profitable business.

Reuben said: "For the Lleyn sheep, breeding aims are to produce an animal with a good structure that will rear twins and perform well on a low input system without the necessity for extra human intervention.

"This is done by a strict culling policy, based on farm recording and Signet Recording.

"The selection process starts at lambing with anything causing any problems being given a slaughter tag.

"Lambs are weighed at birth, most importantly at eight weeks to identify the maternal qualities of the ewes (LLEYN GOLD Rating), and at weaning (100 days), aiming for a ewe to rear her own body weight in lambs.

"Lambs with breeding potential are also weighed at 21 weeks when eye muscle depth and fat depth is measured to give a good indication of carcase quality."

Visitors were taken on a trailer tour of the land near the farmstead, seeing the pedigree cattle herds and large groups of Lleyn ram lambs and ewe lambs.

The South Devon cows and calves were much admired as the cows tucked into silage, there being absolutely no grass to graze.

Reuben started the herd in 2018, founded on animals bought at selected dispersal sales.

As a measure of progress, Reuben said that two of the young bulls had come third and sixth in this year's National Show.

READ NEXT: Travel bursaries available for young sheep farmers

The Herefords were also impressive, with a high index, dark pigmented bull to reduce the incidence of New Forest disease.

Reuben said: "For both breeds it is crucial for commercial performance that heifers calve in the spring at two years old (as running a cow dry increases costs and is less carbon efficient) so a key target is for a cow to produce half its bodyweight in 200 days."

Reuben has a specific policy to maintain the Lleyn flock fertility. Barren levels are kept low - currently a five year average of 1.7 per cent - by keeping as breeding stock only lambs that resulted from the first service cycle and choosing/rearing as rams only animals that were twins, from unassisted births and from quality ewes.

The male lambs had been weaned one to three weeks ago and, as there was very little grass, they had gone into a store phase, but Reuben was confident that "as soon as the rain comes, they'll spring up like mushrooms".

Every year he initially leaves 150 ram lambs entire but, as time goes on, he weeds them out to select around 25 he rears as rams. The ewe lambs were on a large field originally intended for hay but low yields (the drought again) led to re-purposing and the lambs were reaping the benefit.