We have had a busy enough week here with lots on the agenda. Time management is a key issue here now since myself and my partner Fiona had our baby daughter Eppie 15 months ago.

Looking back, I sometimes wonder what I spent all my time doing because I seem to be able to get all the work done in less time. I am very lucky that Fiona, who has her own business, and my parents do so much on different levels to help everything run smoothly.

Heifers

We sent a few more heifers for slaughter. Normally, we try and sell a few every week from September to December. Mostly we would try and move the majority straight off grass. We try to buy a heifer to suit our system and that can work for us.

There are six more in the shed and they will probably go on Wednesday. As there are two short kill weeks coming up over Christmas and New Year, we feel that there will probably be a big glut of cattle to process in January. Factories will be aware of this so we feel the benefit of spending more money on feed over the holiday period may be negligible.

Winter grazing ewes

Some of the ewes that were scanned last week were moved to our neighbours for winter grazing. Luckily we have a couple of ideal spots for winter keep nearby.

Personally, I prefer to pay to get some ewes away, rather than have to house them all now. Some may say it's money wasted, paying for grass, but putting ewes in your own shed has a lot of costs attached too - extra time feeding, bedding, straw and keeping on top of dreaded footrot - so for the benefit of the ewes really, winter keep suits us.

We don’t herd these ewes everyday. In one case, the farmer keeps an eye on them for us and the others we can see across the hedge from our own fields.

Sheds

We also finished off kitting out a shed with new barriers to house sheep mainly, and some cattle when the sheds start emptying at lambing time. It’s a design we thought a bit about to try and get maximum use from the shed so that we could finish some extra heifer’s pre-Christmas, house ewes and maybe buy some early stores to house in March time. It will all depend on various factors and we will keep a flexible agenda on this. It just gives us options.

*Ronan Delany runs a sheep and beef enterprise with a small herd of pedigree Belted Galloway cattle at Dunshaughlin, Meath. You can follow him on Twitter @gaulstownfarms.