For young Aberdeenshire farmer Lewis Gallier, nutrition makes a huge difference to ewe and lamb health.
Love it or loathe it, there is nothing quite like bringing new life into the world at lambing time when ewes have been fed sufficiently on the run up to their big day to ensure they have an abundance of colostrum and are keen and able to rear their offspring.
Add in mild weather, increasing grass cover and working with pregnant ewes is a joy for up-and-coming sheep farmer, Lewis Gallier, when his sheep have been fed Harbro Premium Ewe 18 rolls. Lewis may be relatively new to the industry having ventured into sheep farming in 2020. However, such is his enthusiasm and passion for sheep, that he now not only runs his own flock of pedigree and commercial ewes just outside Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, but also share farms 600 ewes on Drummuir Estate, near Keith, and works self-employed.
For Lewis, relying on Premium Ewe 18 rolls for the six weeks pre and post-lambing has made a huge difference to the health of the ewes, their unborn lambs, and the amount of work required at lambing time. Furthermore, mortality rates have fallen since he switched to Harbro products.
“Lambs are healthier and a better, more consistent size when they’re born when the ewes have been fed Premium 18 ewe rolls on the run up to lambing,” said Lewis.
“Our lambs are now stronger and born with more vigour, so they are quick to get up to their feet and suckle. We no longer find we have to spend the same amount of time ‘sooking’ lambs, and we don’t get the problems with watery mouth or joint ill that we used to get in the shed.”
Lewis has also found that ewes fed the Premium Ewe 18 rolls not only produce sufficient quantities of colostrum but also first milk of superior quality.
“I always test the quality of the colostrum with a refractometer before giving it to lambs, and ewes fed Harbro rolls produce the best quality colostrum compared to ewes fed other feeds I’ve tried. It might cost slightly more to buy than some of the other feeds, but it’s worth it when you don’t have the same issues ‘sooking’ lambs, or disease.”
While Lewis has just six years shepherding under his belt, he has always had a soft spot for sheep with so many fond memories visiting his late grandfather John Polson’s croft in Caithness, which was home to the Smerlie North Country Cheviot ewe flock.
After leaving school in 2015, Lewis completed a civil and structural engineering apprenticeship and planned to go to New Zealand. However, when covid struck, he looked to follow his passion – sheep farming. With assistance from his father the duo bought a 10-acre field and constructed a 30 x 15m shed just north of Inverurie. Initially, Lewis bought foundation North Country Cheviot park-type ewes from the Smerlie flock, now run by his uncle, Andrew Polson, along with North Country Cheviot and traditional-type Bluefaced Leicester rams. In 2022, Lewis registered his pedigree flock with the North Country Cheviot Society using Quantum as his prefix.
Six years on and Lewis not only runs 75 North Country Cheviot and Cheviot Mules, on the small unit which runs alongside a further 30-acres of rented ground, he also share-farms 600 organic Cheviot and Lleyn cross ewes on Drummuir Estate and works three to four days a week between different farms in Aberdeenshire.
However, while he works self-employed and away from home for most of the week, Lewis aims to eventually build up his own flock to 500 ewes plus followers. At present, though, he works his own lambing round about the needs of others.
His own tups go out with the ewes at the start of October for 21 days only, for lambing at the end of February. Last year, he introduced Harbro Feet & Fertility buckets at tupping time, which he believes bolstered scanning percentages, with this year’s scan of 161% being significantly higher than his 148% average.
Harbro Energyze Vitality buckets were introduced in December, with the ewe rolls from mid-January onwards. Twin-bearing ewes were fed 200g per head per day rising to 750g just before lambing, with triplet-bearing ewes fed up to 900g per head over two split feeds per day.
Normally, ewes are brought into straw-bedded courts just before they are due, where they have access to hay and the Premium Ewe 18 rolls fed twice a day. Newborn lambs have their navels sprayed with NoBacz Navel, are given a probiotic, and put into individual pens with their mothers for a couple of days to ensure lambs suckle and bond before going into larger straw-bedded pens until there is sufficient grass to go out to. Lewis also pens off a separate creep area for the lambs once they are a week old where they have access to Harbro Rapid Lamb Creep pellets.
With a keen eye for North Country Cheviots, Lewis has already been showing a few of his sheep at the Royal Highland Show, and this year aims to take a couple of Quantum shearling rams to the breed sale at Lockerbie and Caithness. Two years ago, for his first venture down to Ingliston as an exhibitor he picked up a couple of tickets and he did the exact same again, last year, so just watch this space…
Lewis and his wife Arlene, have high hopes for their expanding sheep flock, which is fast growing in numbers when his ewes are fed Premium Ewe 18 rolls, produce the best quality colostrum and as a result, the healthiest of progeny.