After a break of over 10 years, we’re back farming again at home.

All land had been leased since 2003, but last year myself and my brother decided we’d “take back” 25 acres, starting from 1 January 2015. Some of this is fairly marginal so the plan was to put the wettest of it into forestry and throw a few sheep on to the rest – nothing overly strenuous.

In total, 14 acres went into the afforestation scheme, leaving us 11 acres for sheep.

Part of our initial plan is to build up to 30 or so ewes over the space of about three years. Rather than jump straight in, we bought a few store lambs in August. This was to get used to having sheep around again. There’s nothing like getting your hands dirty to help separate what’s important in theory (I read lots of research and advice papers) from what’s important in practice. It’s like fitness in training versus match fitness.

In two separate batches, 17 store lambs, averaging 37.5kg, arrived on the farm. They were all ewes, meaning we probably paid an extra €5 to €10 per head over what their ram or ‘wether’ comrades would have cost.

They all did well on their fresh grass, and a little meal kept them friendly and easy to handle as they’d follow a bucket into the yard. A few weeks passed and we decided we might keep on our ewe lambs rather than ship them to the factory or butcher. They were docile, most had a nice lengthy appearance, and there were no horny ones that might be inclined to view boundary ditches as a contest. They might not have been perfect breeding stock, but they’d do for fellas who were learning the ropes again.

Cull your flock hard is a common thread in research papers, so we had three of the 17 picked out already as culls. A cousin was sending some lambs to the butcher last week and he said he’d take ours at the same time. He arrived for a look at them.

“Are you sure they’re all ewes?” he queried.

“Oh God yeah, sure they were announced at the mart as ‘all ewes’. That’s how we got the idea to keep most of them for the ram,” I responded.

“Might be no harm to check all the same. ’Tis easy to get wethers and ewe lambs confused at times.”

Just to please him, we checked when he was gone.

Of the first batch of seven we bought, we verified seven ewes. Of the second batch of 10, whose previous owner sold them as ewe lambs, and whose home address we have on the movement docket, four were ewes and six were wethers.

We stood in the yard, scratching our heads. In fairness, it was like getting an insight into how the man felt in that film The Crying Game, when he realised the woman he’d fallen in love with was a man. We couldn’t but smile.

As my brother said: “We’d be waiting a long time for them six to go in lamb.”

I added: “It’d be in the Guinness Book of Records or Ripley’s Believe It or Not we should be calling for the ram that could put them in lamb.”

The upshot is that these six males masquerading as females will be sent to the butcher in the next week. They’re weighing an average of 51kg so we’ll get back a little more than their costs, given current prices. This channel being open now, we’ll send off some of the less attractive ewe lambs in the coming weeks too.

The grand plan of using these 17 stores to start our flock has been rattled by the reality of what building up a decent flock really means. The episode hasn’t cost us anything and we got a decent story to tell out of it. I guess the main thing we’ve learned is that we’ve plenty more lessons to learn on the road ahead – always checking a store lamb’s undercarriage is a good one to start.

The latest addition to the Irish Farmers Journal farmer writes team, Kieran Sullivan farms part-time with his brother in Co Waterford.