4 April 2022
A Welsh sheep farm has reduced its bedding costs by 75%, and significantly improved the incidence of ewe lameness at housing since switching from straw bedding to a slatted floor.
Plastic slats were retrofitted to a shed at Hendre Ifan Goch, a Farming Connect demonstration site at Blackmill, near Bridgend, at a cost of £18,000 (excluding labour and machinery).
The Edwards family - Russell and Eira, and their son, Rhys - run a flock of 530 mainly Welsh Mule ewes and 180 ewe lambs. They made the switch to slats because of challenges with sourcing straw and its cost, and also to reduce labour input and the incidence of lameness at housing.
A Farming Connect project designed by independent sheep consultant Liz Genever has since evaluated the cost and performance of those slats against wheat and barley straw, sawdust and paper waste. During a recent Farming Connect ‘Demo Farm Live’ event at Hendre Ifan Goch, Dr Genever said that at 3p/day (including depreciation), housing ewes on slats had proved to be the cheapest option.
Paper waste bedding at £186/tonne was the most expensive at 32p/day/ewe, including labour. Dr Genever said its use was halted five weeks into the trial because “it wasn’t doing the job’’. The cost of using wheat and barley straw (purchased at £100/tonne), was 12p/day/ewe, including labour. Sawdust, costing £20/tonne, worked out at 4p/day, but a significantly greater volume was needed to keep ewes clean and dry compared to straw.
The cleanliness of ewes on each bedding type was also assessed. The ewes bedded on paper waste were the dirtiest, followed by sawdust, which deteriorated faster than the other beddings. The cleanliness of ewes on wheat and barley straw was good, but the cleanest overall were the sheep housed on slats.
Lameness was detected in eight ewes during the housing period, and the majority of these (six) were animals that had been bedded on wheat straw. There was no incidence of lameness on the slats. Since the trial, no wheat straw has been used, while barley straw (at £80/tonne) is used to bed the individual pens at lambing, since ewes cannot be lambed on slats for welfare reasons.
Sawdust (at £7/tonne) is used for bedding ewe lambs and for ewes pre-lambing. Because of its cost-effectiveness, it is used as a base under a straw layer for ewes and lambs from the early lambing group, as these remain housed until weather conditions and grass availability permit.
Rhys told farmers listening in to the Farming Connect event that he was very pleased with the performance of the slats. His only regrets were that he hadn’t fitted more, and that he had reduced the one-foot gap between the feed barrier and the slats – a situation imposed in part by having to work with the existing shed infrastructure.
Rhys has also been working on a study with Philippa Page, a sheep veterinary consultant at Flock Health Ltd, to establish which health and nutritional challenges are hampering lamb growth rates.
Ms Page told the event that it was rare for growth rates to be impacted by a single factor; it was often due to a combination of reasons, ranging from trace element deficiencies and parasite burdens to stocking density and animal health. As such, all these factors are being scrutinised at Hendre Ifan Goch.
To date, analysis around trace element status had identified a significant deficiency in iodine in ewes and lambs. Ms Page said one of the trace element drenches used did not contain iodine – therefore, an adjustment could be made to effect an immediate change.
Further trace element analysis will be undertaken this year on samples from grazing areas, and blood samples will be taken from lambs at target growth stages, to assess trace element levels.
Farming Connect is delivered by Menter a Busnes and Lantra Wales, and funded by the Welsh Government and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.