Visit to a Romney stud farm
This stud farm had 15,000 sheep in total, spread over three farms. He also has cattle and buys in store lambs. He exports rams and semen all round the world including the UK. His motto is work smarter not harder. He sells a few hundred rams every year over a period of around 10days. They are all recorded and the current focus is on muscle and rams tolerant to facial eczema. Some people have lost a considerable amount of sheep due to this. The rams are just fed grass. They will be brought down to the flats from the hill for a few weeks before selling just to make them look a little more presentable. They are drenched only three times in the year and weighed every 6 weeks with the bottom performing ones taken out every 6 weeks. They scan at 165%. They make sure the ewes have plenty of grass and move them every 2-3 days pre tupping and during tupping. He only lost 7 ewes from a group of 1,900 last year during lambing. On the flats he gets DLWG of up to 320kg compared to nearer 150kg DLWG on the hills. At weaning the lambs are sorted in to weight batches and the ones nearest finishing are put on the flats and then the next nearest are moved on to the flats etc. He plants forage crops to finish lambs, maize to feed silage outside to sheep and called chicory and plantain rocket fuel for finishing lambs. 
There are quite a lot of feral goats on the farm and he said these are essential to control the weeds. A neighbour culled all the coats on the neighbouring farm and had real problems with weeds growing back. The setup of the farm is excellent as all the hill paddock run into the central lane on the bottom of the valley leading to the handling facilities and wool shed. To spray or fertilise the hills its all done by helicopter or plane.
This stud farm had 15,000 sheep in total, spread over three farms. He also has cattle and buys in store lambs. He exports rams and semen all round the world including the UK. His motto is work smarter not harder. He sells a few hundred rams every year over a period of around 10days. They are all recorded and the current focus is on muscle and rams tolerant to facial eczema. Some people have lost a considerable amount of sheep due to this. The rams are just fed grass. They will be brought down to the flats from the hill for a few weeks before selling just to make them look a little more presentable. They are drenched only three times in the year and weighed every 6 weeks with the bottom performing ones taken out every 6 weeks. They scan at 165%. They make sure the ewes have plenty of grass and move them every 2-3 days pre tupping and during tupping. He only lost 7 ewes from a group of 1,900 last year during lambing. On the flats he gets DLWG of up to 320kg compared to nearer 150kg DLWG on the hills. At weaning the lambs are sorted in to weight batches and the ones nearest finishing are put on the flats and then the next nearest are moved on to the flats etc. He plants forage crops to finish lambs, maize to feed silage outside to sheep and called chicory and plantain rocket fuel for finishing lambs. 
There are quite a lot of feral goats on the farm and he said these are essential to control the weeds. A neighbour culled all the coats on the neighbouring farm and had real problems with weeds growing back. The setup of the farm is excellent as all the hill paddock run into the central lane on the bottom of the valley leading to the handling facilities and wool shed. To spray or fertilise the hills its all done by helicopter or plane. 
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