Was that live weight or dead weight? for a 40kilo lamb dead weight is about 18kilos i didnt see all the programme last night  it isnt very representative anyway ,first draw of lambs for market are always the best doers  they dont need extra feed after that we feed lambs cake.

Live weight, when he was choosing.

Ok the lambs at 14 wks and 20kilos will  probably just  been taken off their mothers, whilst lambs  are on milk they thrive like crazy so maybe put on a kilo a week, after this when they start weaning and eating grass their weight slows down considerably hence feeding them cake to put the weight on them. I prefer more mature meat myself same with beef , what we sell and buy at the moment has no taste to me as we kill them too young if anyone has tried say Galloway beef which is slow maturing it tastes soooo much better, trouble then is the price of feed outweighs the price you get for your beef and makes it more expensive to buy.Demand is for cheap meat,dont blame people but the slaughter houses take an amazing cut so butchers have to sell this to make profit for themselves,we will only get around a £1 a kilofor lamb....what does it sell for in the butchers.....if you do the maths So how can they charge more for young lamb i.e milk fed.
On another point young animals are looked on differently in our society we have toys ,films like "Babe" books etc that give these animals human characteristics thus making it harder to think about killing them.Mind you i do have names for any orphaned bucket reared calves i rear and im a farmers wife!!!

i thought the best of it was, on both this programme and the HFW one...all the people whinging "i cant afford it" were huge obese tubs of lard who clearly were not starving to death!!!! Maybe they should cut out some of the rubbish and quantity they were clearly gorging on daily (despite being so called poor) and eat less food overall but of a higher quality....might do their pockets and their health some good!

I thought that as well, Sam.  Or they were boozing in the pub!

A large part of the problem is that people have just got used to paying a much smaller percentage of their income on food.  Hopefully some people will have been influenced by these programmes and the discussions and will subsequently change their buying habits and then quality of life of the animals will improve.

>i cant afford it" were huge obese tubs of lard who clearly were not starving to death!!!!

Yes I noticed that too!!!
I suppose they showed a representation of people but I deffinatly dont fit into that catagory LOL
Lea :)

So whats peoples thoughts on farmed chicken then, did many watch Hugh Fearnly or Jamie Oliver progs??
Loads to discuss really I thought, like the farmer gets 3p per chicken How can that be?????? Do you think thats right, or the way the are intensively reared???

I think its downright cruelty

Prices seem to vary for slaughtering & dressing lamb. I`ve seen quoted £16 for both or £8 slaughter only per 40kl lamb :)