EFFICIENCY in sheep farming is all about being as productive and profitable as possible and for one Aberdeenshire family who made a switch to a composite sheep breed eight years ago, they’ve seen significant improvements in their flock.

Nominated as one of the finalists for last year’s AgriScot Sheep Farm of the Year award, Andrew Robertson farms in partnership with his retired parents, George and Jean, and his wife, also Jean, at the 360-hectare rented unit, Titaboutie, near Aboyne. They run a flock of 470 home-bred Highlander ewes and 130 ewe hoggs alongside a herd of 150 suckler cows plus 23 heifers which calve in the spring and autumn.

Originally, the family’s sheep enterprise was made up of Cheviot cross Shetland ewes but after a bad winter in 2010 when they suffered several losses due to snow, they knew they had to rethink and look to something different. Later that year, the Robertsons purchased their first Highlander tups from Innovis, which came from New Zealand as embryos. They were then bred into the Cheviot crosses and as a result, the flock is now at least 75% Highlander.

“It got to the stage where I said, we either have to stop the sheep or move to a breed that is hardier, produces more lambs and can breed home-bred replacements. We did dabble with Texels and Lleyns, but they just didn’t work for us, so I took to the internet to search for different breeds and came across the Highlander,” began Andrew.

“The Highlanders are so easily managed and produce a lot more lambs which are strong and vigorous. I look at myself as a meat producer so the more meat I produce the better. They may not be showy sheep, but the ewes always have plenty milk and we can get up to seven crops of lambs from them. They’re able to lamb outside and rear triplets, too.

Andrew continued: “In the previous flock of Cheviot cross Shetlands, they used to be tupped to the Suffolk and those lambs would go to Christmas sales and do really well. We may not be able to do that with these breeds, but we certainly have the productivity.”

A New Zealand bred composite maternal breed which is believed to rear an extra 0.19 lambs compared to standard UK crossbreds, the Highlander ewes at Titaboutie are either tupped purely to the Highlander or to the Primera – a composite terminal sire which was also developed by Focus Genetics to produce high performance finished lambs. The Primera is a composite of a Dorset, Hampshire Down, Suffolk, White Suffolk and Texel, while the Highlander is developed on genetics of the Romany, Dorest and Finn breeds.

“The flock is now a closed flock, with all replacements being home-bred, however tups are bought in from Innovis. The beauty of buying the stock tups from Innovis is that we know they’ll work as they’re all progeny recorded before being sold, and we always have the choice of the very best of tups.

“It’s a simple system. We’ve reduced costs by not having to buy in gimmers and we just leave the breeding to the animals. They’re not the cheapest of tups but at least we know they’re going to work as they’re all progeny recorded before being sold,” said Andrew, who added that Innovis tups are continually being improved through the combination of breed genetics and that they’re becoming tighter coated.

“The advantage of breeding your own replacements is that they can be selected from the best breeding families and your minimising the risk of disease. Touch wood, we don’t seem to have much phenomena in the calves now and after a good few years, we’re certainly seeing improvements in the sheep flock.”

In the previous traditional flock at Titaboutie, the Robertsons had used the Suffolk as a terminal sire, but found lambs were always slow to get up and suckle. They find now that with the Highlander, ewes can be left to lamb away themselves and lambs will be up and sooking within minutes, whereas before, they’d have to return to the field multiple times to check on lambs.

Scanning percentages have increased year-on-year for the family with this year’s ewes scanning at 200% and the hoggs at 148%. Among the ewes, only five were barren and it was similar situation with the hoggs too.

“We’ve seen a massive difference in scanning percentages since moving away from the Cheviot crosses. This year, we had 75 to 80 sets of triplets but because we had at least four inches of snow in the first few weeks at lambing this year, the ewes couldn’t cope outside with three lambs, so we had to take them away,” said Jean, who has three children with Andrew – Mairi who works for BP in Aberdeen, Daniel who studied agricultural engineering at Harper Adams and Gavin who is entering his last year of an agriculture degree at Newcastle.

Andrew added: “Our lambing is very labour intensive but that’s really down to the poor weather that usually hits us and the number of lambs the ewes produce each year. Lambing hoggs is certainly more work and a lot of them carried twins this year but thankfully they always lamb at the tail end of the lambing.”

Ewes and hoggs are usually tupped at a ratio of 65:1 although Andrew did point out that the Primera is believed to have the ability to tup at a ratio of 100:1. The ewes are bolused before tupping for selenium, cobalt, copper and zinc and the results have been a marked improvement in performance. Last year, the smaller lambs in the flock were given a bolus after speaning which really helped improve growth rates and the plan is to do the same this year. Ewes are also vaccinated with Heptavac and dosed twice a year for fluke, while lambs receive Ovivac and are all done with click at the beginning of June for blofly. Lambs on the hill are also covered for tick too. Footvax has been used for the past four years to cut down on footrot and any ewe which needs treated after that is culled and sold through United Auctions, Huntly.

Tups go out on November 1 and twin and triplet bearing ewes are fed neeps and receive Harbro cobs six weeks before lambing, while ewes carrying a single lamb stay out on the hill ground and thrive on hay and energy blocks. In total, the Robertsons used 15 tonnes of Harbro cobs this year and Andrew pointed out that most of that tonnage was used after lambing due to a grass shortage.

“We’re lucky that we have a decent steading with plenty space to house all the cows throughout the winter so there’s always plenty grass for the ewes. The ewes also help tidy the grass up before the cows go out at the end of May and usually reseed around 50 acres of grass per year,” commented Andrew, who receives nutritional advice from David MacKenzie, Harbro and sells both the lambs and cattle through McIntosh Donald’s livestock officer, Fiona Wilson.

While hoggs stay on better quality grass with their lambs before speaning in August, ewes and lambs graze on seasonable ground which the Robertsons rent nearby. All lambs are speaned from their mothers in August, and head onto the lush second cut silage aftermath before being sold direct to McIntosh Donald on a Tesco Cost of Production contract. Last year, 91% of the lambs hit the target weight of 16 to 21kg deadweight, and 90% of them were U or R grade.

“The first of our lambs head away at the end of August and sell right through to February. They thrive on grass and the tail end are finished on forage rape.

“Because we sell them on a contract, we always know what they’re going to make as the price is agreed six months beforehand. We don’t need to rush to sell them when the trade is good and we’re never on a waiting list when it comes to sending them to McIntosh Donald. The Suffolk and Texel produce heavier lambs, but at least with these non-traditional breeds we always get more lambs to sell,” said Andrew.

It’s not just the progeny from the Highlander ewes which produce a profit for the Robertsons as Andrew pointed out that their wool is worth a premium too. Newly clipped at the end of June, some 550 sheep were clipped by Andrew and the clippers this year to produce 2.5 tonnes of wool. What Andrew found most impressive, though, was the fact that not one ewe was bald.

It may be a testing time in the industry with an uncertain future ahead of us and an unpredictable climate, but for the Robertsons there’s no comparison to the Highlander as Andrew concludes: “The Highlander is a low maintenance breed which boasts prolificacy and longevity and can produce more lambs than most traditional breeds. In an era like today, I think the sheep industry could go the same way as the pig industry – farmers will buy for numbers to bolster productivity.”