By using an EasyRam tup you are guaranteed extra profits from your flock. Following the removal of all subsidies in the mid 1980’s NZ sheep farmers had to change or leave the industry. The survivors rapidly learnt about the power of improved sheep genetics and so investing in low input and high output to develop very low cost production methods that allowed them to develop low input management systems so they could firstly survive and eventually prosper.
Key to the survivor’s success was to carefully select sheep for functional traits rather than show ring beauty points so that over the last 35 years the average NZ Flock size, being looked after by 1 man, has increased from 850 to 3500 ewes.
Successful NZ sheep farmers also quickly learnt how to grow more and better quality grass. This grass was then converted into cash by feeding it to sheep that had been specifically bred to convert large quantities of forage (through a large rumen) into meat as rapidly as possible. The power of improved sheep genetics meant that today the same amount of sheep meat is produced in NZ from half the number of ewes in the country 35 years ago.
By sourcing our rams only from New Zealand’s elite breeders, ‘EasyRams’ are able to make available in the UK these superior blood lines that will meet the post Brexit needs of the UK sheep industry, including outdoor lambing, ewe lamb lambing and grazing under pressure using rotational grazing.
The EasyRam flock is managed totally commercially in order to mirror the systems used by our clients.
Lambing:
Most of our ewes and all our ewe lambs lamb outside on grass in April. A smaller number are lambed indoors in early march to provide strong early born ram lambs for sale.
Ewe Feeding:
All ewes are wintered on Fodder Beet before lambing on grass and receive no concentrates. Ewe Lambs are wintered on stubble turnips before lambing on grass. March lambing ewes come in 2 weeks before lambing and are then fed silage and concentrates ‘til they lamb and are then turned out on to a grass only diet.
Grass and Forage:
We run a grass based system with ZERO concentrates ever offered to lambs. We rotationally graze clover/ryegrass leys many of which also have added herbs. After Christmas all retained Ram Lambs and Ewe Lambs graze stubble turnips before returning to grass in April.
Health:
Maedi Visna:
All sheep on our farm are MV accredited.
CLA:
Our flock is 100% free
Borders Disease: We have never seen a case of this disease and when exporting semen all rams tested for this disease have always tested negative.
Scrapie:
We are totally free of this disease and most rams are Group 1 resistant.
Vaccines:
All lambs are vaccinated with Scabivax at birth and are then given Heptavac P at 8 and 12 weeks of age. Shearling rams receive boosters the following spring and a further one in the autumn just prior to sale.
Easy Rams are the UK’s only breeders and sellers of 100% Pure New Zealand Terminal (meat) and Maternal rams.
Over the last 13 years we have sold 3000 rams to buyers from Orkney to Lands End.
Our rams are all grass fed. They have never seen concentrates in their life and they are bred from many generations of sheep similarly managed in New Zealand.
Between us we have been selling rams for over 50 years.
Since we started EasyRams, we have sold every ram ourselves to every individual client. We are a simple family business with no salesmen
All rams sold have a full Maternal Index from SIL allowing you to select the rams with the very best breeding potential.
EasyRam NZ Terminal rams will serve more ewes in a season than other native born UK rams
EasyRam NZ Terminal rams are guaranteed not to MELT whilst tupping and are expected to work on average for 4 or 5 seasons.
Recording physical Performance and functional traits is vital to the improvement of our flock.
We use Terminal and Maternal Rankings and Indexes in order to compare all our sheep - Suffolks, Texels, Sufftexes and EasyDams on a common basis.