Lamb Selection

Today Tod and I gathered up a group of lambs that have been grazing the stubble turnips that were planted in April.  The lambs have been grazing them for about 4 weeks and we thought they would be ready to sell through the Mayhill Lamb Group to Randall Parker Foods and the onto Sainsbury's.  The lambs were all weighed and their weights recorded on our Shearwell weighing system.  They were weighed two weeks ago and the average growth rate has been about 1.5kg liveweight/week.  We picked out 86 lambs that weighed between 42kg and 46kg liveweight which will be taken to the abattoir early next week and could be on the shelves of Sainsbury's stores by the end of the week.We then have a bit of a dilemma as the field with the turnips, should be planted with wheat by the end of September but with so many lambs nearly ready a change in diet could set them back.  With the current growth rates many more will be of marketable weight in two weeks time so that might be the cue to move the lambs and plant the wheat.