The heavy rain of last week has been a blip in what up to now has been a perfect autumn for grazing. At present, I have about 60% of the farm grazed out and closed up for the spring.

The rams will be removed from the different breeding groups by the end of the month, bringing a conclusion to the breeding season for another year. With this done, I will probably house the ewes which are due to lamb down first by early to mid-December.

This will leave outside the ewes which are due to lamb later in the spring. They will graze out the remainder of the grass before moving on to the Redstart. Hopefully, all going to plan, they will not need to be housed till sometime in late January.

The Redstart, although fairly good, doesn’t have the bulk normally associated with the time of year it was sown, especially the field sown in mid-August. These fields more resemble ones sown in September due to the lack of moisture in the soil after sowing which delayed germination.

I have sourced a field of beet tops for the replacement ewes to graze for a while which will help stretch out the fodder supplies for the rest of the ewes until they return.

Checking rams

As I take the rams away from the ewes later this month after their busy work period, I will give them a good check over, with any health issues being dealt with.

They will then receive some concentrate supplementation for a period of time and hopefully this ration will build their body condition back up. I find this very important for any young rams which have been working as not looking after them now will affect their future performance.

Looking after them now gives them plenty of time to recover and prepare for next year’s breeding season. I will also assess how many may need to be replaced before next year.

Clean livestock policy

The clean livestock policy is an issue that we as farmers have to be proactive about. The days of running lambs up into a trailer straight from the field, on to the lorry and into the factory, are finished.

We are after all in the food production business and whether we like it or not we must do what we can to reduce the risk of contaminating that food. I ended up housing lambs for a couple of days last week prior to sending them to the factory in an attempt to get them dry enough after the rain. Better to do this than have the lambs rejected and sent home.

I have since housed the remainder of the lambs and I plan on dagging these this week. Their transition to shed life has been fairly straightforward as I already had them eating meal beforehand. I will build them up to ad-lib meal over the next while to get them finished as quickly as possible.

I am keen to finish out these lambs soon as they will be eating meal and costing me approximately 30-45c a day.

These lambs are the least profitable on the farm as it is not possible for me to finish them on grass and given the length of time that they have been on the farm.

Every additional week I have to keep them eats into the profit margins.