The summer holidays are well under way for Alison and the children. It is wonderful to see Mia and Drew take such an interest in life on the farm but with the additional helping hands come extra safety concerns around the place.

I have to take care of simple things such as ensuring a secure play area for them and getting Mia and Drew to wear hi-vis vests when they do come out to help with simple jobs. I have had to establish ground rules with them about the farm also. You can never be too cautious though.

With grass growth slowing down slightly, I have taken advantage of the good cull ewe trade at present to shift some of the cull ewes off to the factory. These ewes had problems with teeth, elders or were ones that had picked up two ear notches over the last year.

These notches can arise from a variety of reasons, but repeat lameness is the main one. The system works well for identifying repeat offenders as it is easy to notch an ewe’s ear when you’re treating her. It is like the yellow card system in soccer – two yellows and you’re gone.

Performance records

As I have nearly finished building ewe numbers on the farm I will go through the performance records of the remaining ewes to decide on which of them will be culled or kept for another year’s breeding.

I’m fortunate enough that I keep my own replacements and they will fill in any reduction in my ewe numbers for the Sheep Welfare Scheme. Anyone not retaining homebred replacements will have to purchase in replacements in order to maintain the correct number of ewes.

With weaning out of the way and lambs divided into the different grazing groups according to sex and weight, the yard is in need of a major tidy up. Another motivating factor to get the job done is that Teagasc is holding an open day here on 26 July. Topics to be covered will include grassland management, breeding policy and farm financial performance. This will be my last open day as a BETTER sheep farm participant as my time in the programme is coming to an end.

Looking back over my time in the BETTER farm sheep programme I can say that the last six years have been a positive experience for me, with great progress made in farm profitability and my own technical betterment.

The six years in the scheme have flown. Hopefully, anyone attending the farm walk will take home some knowledge or information from the speakers that may help their own farming system.