Monday night’s and Tuesday’s incessant rainfall led to spot flooding in areas which received the worst of the rainfall. While some regions escaped the worst of it, the volume of rainfall has led to waterlogged soils and brought about a serious deterioration in ground conditions.

Grass utilisation is suffering and so too is lamb performance

While sheep farmers in such areas are not facing the same pressures as some beef and dairy farmers to house cattle, performance of stock will still be significantly dented.

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Grass utilisation is suffering and so too is lamb performance. Farmers need to be mindful of a low dry matter content in swards and take steps to try to underpin performance.

Ground conditions

Moving animals quicker from swards which have become soiled and trampled will help to improve performance and provide an opportunity to get better utilisation out of these areas in the next grazing.

The deterioration in ground conditions is also said to be raising issues with the clean livestock policy. Producers need to be aware of this and draft lambs when dry and delay sending those which are likely to raise issues for slaughter.