September 21, 2025 • 8 mins
Ben catches up from the lambing beat where he reckons twenty percent of his ewes lambed last night!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
The Masters on the Farm brought to you by Southland
District Council working together for a better Southland.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Ben Durley farms just out of Wyndham with his wife Sarah,
sheep beef and YouTube farmer. Del's good afternoon.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Good ay, here's a going not bad?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
How's everything? How's the lambing beet? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
She's pretty chaotic this morning and she talk about me
being a YouTube farmer. I went out with all the
best intentions this morning to film a video and we
got to the second paddock and I had just put
the camera in the box and left it behind because
I reckon I had about twenty percent of years lyam overnight,
so there were just young lambs everywhere. Not a bad
thing because she's a good day today, but yeah, but
(00:47):
chaotic trying to get around the paddocks.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
How heavily stocked are the paddocks.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I think her average is about fifteen or sixteen years
to the heat day, so probably getting up there are
we But and on that the old covers. We had
reasonably good covers over most of the farm and we've
spread out, but we certainly seem to be getting caught up,
so a bit of growth would be nice. But yeah,
the old Yeah he got that many young lambs and
every petic and it's just, yeah, you don't know where
to go. Everywhere is just an explosion.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So is it a shamuzzle or just to organized.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Chaos somewhere in between us there was a bit of
there was a bit of putting young lambs back with
their mums and stuff. Well the mixstage us are pretty good,
but yeah, the old turn this morning there was a
there was a wee bit of chaos there. One one
had decided she's going to have one lamb over here
and one lamb over here and then she's going to
go pinched to others. And I don't know where their
mothers are, but yeah she's in the mother in on
(01:36):
box with one that I think is hers, and then
the other three in our pets.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Do you mark your twins or you gave that up
years ago?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
No, dead and Frank did it for about half a
lemming when it first become a thing. They decided that's
a really bad or did many many years ago. So
I haven't, yeh, haven't carried on with that. And there's yeah,
a few people around I know that we're doing it
are sort of realizing it's a hell of a lot
of work for the game that they get and dropping
it off. So no, I don't think that's something I'll
be done.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That's a hell of a lot of lambs overnight when
you're thinking about a twenty percent of your use of land. Yeah,
and one go.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I've never seen it quite like that. Possibly we have
caught big synchronization issues being surrounded by stud breeders, and
it's always a thing, and it tends to be the
mixtage us go early in the two D score lake.
But they're both maybe hitting right in the middle week
this year. And yeah, it was certainly a bit of
a shock this morning, But like I say, they're just
a bit all alive. Most of the twin us running
(02:31):
around have two lambs, so at this stage we won't complain.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Ground conditions are holding up. Were a bit dam.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, No, they're good now, certainly. We official start date
was the twelfth, the earliest of the full cycle before that,
and there was plenty of waterline around early on, that's
for sure, especially some of the flatter paddics that were
grazed a bit later. We've got one pedic out up
the other side of the river. A percent of that
was in crop, and there was a three hit of
grass paddic at the end, So just stop going back
and forth across it and track just taking baylor jet
(02:58):
and stuff. It certainly got quite wet, and there was
a few gully floors and stuff that were pretty bloody
muddy there for a while. But at the moment, things
are things are good, which is good because the forecast
next week's looking a bit average. But yeah, hopefully most
of it gets away.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Every blady grass counts at this time of year.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I suppose, oh it does, There's no doubt about that.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
So it's just pretty much September being September. Just a
fifth of you used lambed over and one hurs, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Exactly, that's the one. Yeah, And I mean hay to
be fear it probably his or I shouldn't say this
is a few of the guys that had big, big
numbers of lambs or used lembing in that first week,
they might not have thought it felt like a normal September,
but certainly we had a good run of weather for
a week or so and in a bit of rough
weather either side of that. For us, it's probably probably
sounding like a normal September, isn't it now?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
You were telling me as well, you want to talk
about your theory around triplets.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Well it's it's it's a very very immature theory at
the moment. But yeah, look, we've always struggled with triplets.
We've we've tried over the past. We used to feed them,
you know, get them out of scanning and would feed
them to on the grams of sheepnuts every day or
even more the whole way through to spreading out, and
or they'd have everything thrown at them and we just
have massive you death threats and not great lamb survival either.
(04:13):
They've never lambed better than twins as far as a
scanning tailing percentage goes. So this year what we thought,
we sort of knew we didn't have the grass around
to really treat them like that. And then we've dropped
the sheetnuts off the last few years because and that
has definitely seen a big reduction and you deaths. We
were just taking them too far. But the lamb numbers
(04:34):
have still been pretty dismal and well just not as
good as the twins. And what we often find is
you leave three lambs on a you the ones that
have one diet breath or you know, within the first
few hours. Normally rear two lambs. The ones that rear
three lambs even past tailing sometimes but get towards tailing,
they'll always have almost always have lost one, and quite
(04:58):
often you'll find they've lost two. They just they're just
not getting half colostrum, they're not getting enough milk. So
this year we thought we'd try something different for a laugh.
It was a bit of a spur at the moment
thing and we thought, well, it won't be every single one,
but we'll try and pul a lamb off just to
be at every triple at year this year and see
what happens. And yeah, of course that means you've got
(05:18):
to do something with those lambs. It looks like it's
where I can get in the pack. At the moment,
most of you just have. There's a few with one
that nasty. Whether at the beginning of this of the
of lambing was that took out a few, but yeah,
so then we said, oh, well, what are we going
to do with them now? So we started feeding, just
bottle feeding feeders and you know, three four times a day,
and it wasn't going to work. It was going to
(05:40):
send us all crazy. So went down to see some
people down talking we want the heck away who had
an ad lib system going, and yeah, Sarah talked to
them a wee bit and found out they don't actually
drink much more milk, and they just they don't get
the big bloated gatters and they just they're very settled.
And we thought, oh well, we'll give it a go.
So or couple of feeders thirty two for thirty teat
(06:02):
and fifteen teet or something, and started pouring milk and
getting them on the feeders. And I'll go to admit
it's actually worked really really well. It was about in
the seventy r eighty ams in there at the moment
and you walk up to the shed and the way
junior pen where you're still feeding them full times a day.
It's a bit noisy, but the rest of them just
sort of look at you. They're sitting there with full tummies,
(06:23):
not not massive full tummies, but they're full, and they
just go up to the feeder every once in a
blue moon and take ad or ten sucks and then
walk away. And yeah, it's it's been quite impressive seeing
it works. So keeping a close eye on the economics
of it this year, but if it works, it might
be something we carry on doing into the future.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So it's a heat wave, milk warm where they're using.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
No, No, we were actually just doing it all on
cold milk. Obviously that the way juniors are that are
getting bottle feed they are on warm milk. But one
thing we found both the place we went or here
to have a look at and online was that if
you can't ed lib feed them, you actually want cold
milk because it stops and gorging themselves. And from what
we've seen so far, there is quite a bit of
(07:04):
truth to that. So yeah, just simply mixing buckets and
tipping it in a feeder and walking away.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Heydyls. At this time of year, a lot of farmers
going to a lambing bed. But you've got a bed
there that's reminiscent of the Jullius Caesar time. So what
do you do at lambing time? Do you like peroxide here,
shavy here, or something ridical like that just to get
through the season.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
No, my bed is basically I need it over winter.
You know, I'd love wearing shorts and I don't like
wearing face masks or anything. So the bed does the
job there. Basically, the gist of it is I will
get to a point in spring or summer and we'll
be doing something in the yards and I'll go, this
(07:46):
is ridiculous. This is just getting way too hot, and
that night it comes off right to the skin.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Normally, I suppose if your bed there, you'll get two
feeds of soup.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, it does get a bit scruffy. You do, try
to keep it tighter. Again, mouth will weave it, but yeah,
trim it up a weave it around there. But yeah, no,
it certainly serves its purpose and seasons or their sense
for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Good on your beam and let you carry on. Always
appreciate your time. That cheers any Ben Dooley, he's got
it all going on today twenty percent of his used
landed overnight for goodness, sake away to Riversdale. Next we're
catching it with Mac Dylan plow m an extraordinay
The Masters on the Farm brought to you by Southland
District Council working together for a better Southland.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Ben Durley farms just out of Wyndham with his wife Sarah,
sheep beef and YouTube farmer. Del's good afternoon.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Good ay, here's a going not bad?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
How's everything? How's the lambing beet? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
She's pretty chaotic this morning and she talk about me
being a YouTube farmer. I went out with all the
best intentions this morning to film a video and we
got to the second paddock and I had just put
the camera in the box and left it behind because
I reckon I had about twenty percent of years lyam overnight,
so there were just young lambs everywhere. Not a bad
thing because she's a good day today, but yeah, but
(00:47):
chaotic trying to get around the paddocks.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
How heavily stocked are the paddocks.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I think her average is about fifteen or sixteen years
to the heat day, so probably getting up there are
we But and on that the old covers. We had
reasonably good covers over most of the farm and we've
spread out, but we certainly seem to be getting caught up,
so a bit of growth would be nice. But yeah,
the old Yeah he got that many young lambs and
every petic and it's just, yeah, you don't know where
to go. Everywhere is just an explosion.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So is it a shamuzzle or just to organized.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Chaos somewhere in between us there was a bit of
there was a bit of putting young lambs back with
their mums and stuff. Well the mixstage us are pretty good,
but yeah, the old turn this morning there was a
there was a wee bit of chaos there. One one
had decided she's going to have one lamb over here
and one lamb over here and then she's going to
go pinched to others. And I don't know where their
mothers are, but yeah she's in the mother in on
(01:36):
box with one that I think is hers, and then
the other three in our pets.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Do you mark your twins or you gave that up
years ago?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
No, dead and Frank did it for about half a
lemming when it first become a thing. They decided that's
a really bad or did many many years ago. So
I haven't, yeh, haven't carried on with that. And there's yeah,
a few people around I know that we're doing it
are sort of realizing it's a hell of a lot
of work for the game that they get and dropping
it off. So no, I don't think that's something I'll
be done.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That's a hell of a lot of lambs overnight when
you're thinking about a twenty percent of your use of land. Yeah,
and one go.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I've never seen it quite like that. Possibly we have
caught big synchronization issues being surrounded by stud breeders, and
it's always a thing, and it tends to be the
mixtage us go early in the two D score lake.
But they're both maybe hitting right in the middle week
this year. And yeah, it was certainly a bit of
a shock this morning, But like I say, they're just
a bit all alive. Most of the twin us running
(02:31):
around have two lambs, so at this stage we won't complain.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Ground conditions are holding up. Were a bit dam.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, No, they're good now, certainly. We official start date
was the twelfth, the earliest of the full cycle before that,
and there was plenty of waterline around early on, that's
for sure, especially some of the flatter paddics that were
grazed a bit later. We've got one pedic out up
the other side of the river. A percent of that
was in crop, and there was a three hit of
grass paddic at the end, So just stop going back
and forth across it and track just taking baylor jet
(02:58):
and stuff. It certainly got quite wet, and there was
a few gully floors and stuff that were pretty bloody
muddy there for a while. But at the moment, things
are things are good, which is good because the forecast
next week's looking a bit average. But yeah, hopefully most
of it gets away.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Every blady grass counts at this time of year.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I suppose, oh it does, There's no doubt about that.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
So it's just pretty much September being September. Just a
fifth of you used lambed over and one hurs, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Exactly, that's the one. Yeah, And I mean hay to
be fear it probably his or I shouldn't say this
is a few of the guys that had big, big
numbers of lambs or used lembing in that first week,
they might not have thought it felt like a normal September,
but certainly we had a good run of weather for
a week or so and in a bit of rough
weather either side of that. For us, it's probably probably
sounding like a normal September, isn't it now?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
You were telling me as well, you want to talk
about your theory around triplets.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Well it's it's it's a very very immature theory at
the moment. But yeah, look, we've always struggled with triplets.
We've we've tried over the past. We used to feed them,
you know, get them out of scanning and would feed
them to on the grams of sheepnuts every day or
even more the whole way through to spreading out, and
or they'd have everything thrown at them and we just
have massive you death threats and not great lamb survival either.
(04:13):
They've never lambed better than twins as far as a
scanning tailing percentage goes. So this year what we thought,
we sort of knew we didn't have the grass around
to really treat them like that. And then we've dropped
the sheetnuts off the last few years because and that
has definitely seen a big reduction and you deaths. We
were just taking them too far. But the lamb numbers
(04:34):
have still been pretty dismal and well just not as
good as the twins. And what we often find is
you leave three lambs on a you the ones that
have one diet breath or you know, within the first
few hours. Normally rear two lambs. The ones that rear
three lambs even past tailing sometimes but get towards tailing,
they'll always have almost always have lost one, and quite
(04:58):
often you'll find they've lost two. They just they're just
not getting half colostrum, they're not getting enough milk. So
this year we thought we'd try something different for a laugh.
It was a bit of a spur at the moment
thing and we thought, well, it won't be every single one,
but we'll try and pul a lamb off just to
be at every triple at year this year and see
what happens. And yeah, of course that means you've got
(05:18):
to do something with those lambs. It looks like it's
where I can get in the pack. At the moment,
most of you just have. There's a few with one
that nasty. Whether at the beginning of this of the
of lambing was that took out a few, but yeah,
so then we said, oh, well, what are we going
to do with them now? So we started feeding, just
bottle feeding feeders and you know, three four times a day,
and it wasn't going to work. It was going to
(05:40):
send us all crazy. So went down to see some
people down talking we want the heck away who had
an ad lib system going, and yeah, Sarah talked to
them a wee bit and found out they don't actually
drink much more milk, and they just they don't get
the big bloated gatters and they just they're very settled.
And we thought, oh well, we'll give it a go.
So or couple of feeders thirty two for thirty teat
(06:02):
and fifteen teet or something, and started pouring milk and
getting them on the feeders. And I'll go to admit
it's actually worked really really well. It was about in
the seventy r eighty ams in there at the moment
and you walk up to the shed and the way
junior pen where you're still feeding them full times a day.
It's a bit noisy, but the rest of them just
sort of look at you. They're sitting there with full tummies,
(06:23):
not not massive full tummies, but they're full, and they
just go up to the feeder every once in a
blue moon and take ad or ten sucks and then
walk away. And yeah, it's it's been quite impressive seeing
it works. So keeping a close eye on the economics
of it this year, but if it works, it might
be something we carry on doing into the future.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So it's a heat wave, milk warm where they're using.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
No, No, we were actually just doing it all on
cold milk. Obviously that the way juniors are that are
getting bottle feed they are on warm milk. But one
thing we found both the place we went or here
to have a look at and online was that if
you can't ed lib feed them, you actually want cold
milk because it stops and gorging themselves. And from what
we've seen so far, there is quite a bit of
(07:04):
truth to that. So yeah, just simply mixing buckets and
tipping it in a feeder and walking away.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Heydyls. At this time of year, a lot of farmers
going to a lambing bed. But you've got a bed
there that's reminiscent of the Jullius Caesar time. So what
do you do at lambing time? Do you like peroxide here,
shavy here, or something ridical like that just to get
through the season.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
No, my bed is basically I need it over winter.
You know, I'd love wearing shorts and I don't like
wearing face masks or anything. So the bed does the
job there. Basically, the gist of it is I will
get to a point in spring or summer and we'll
be doing something in the yards and I'll go, this
(07:46):
is ridiculous. This is just getting way too hot, and
that night it comes off right to the skin.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Normally, I suppose if your bed there, you'll get two
feeds of soup.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, it does get a bit scruffy. You do, try
to keep it tighter. Again, mouth will weave it, but yeah,
trim it up a weave it around there. But yeah, no,
it certainly serves its purpose and seasons or their sense
for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Good on your beam and let you carry on. Always
appreciate your time. That cheers any Ben Dooley, he's got
it all going on today twenty percent of his used
landed overnight for goodness, sake away to Riversdale. Next we're
catching it with Mac Dylan plow m an extraordinay
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