The breeding flock of ewes were housed for the winter on Saturday. They had been away on winter keep since November. With the grass all gone and conditions turning more unpleasant, the easiest option was to house. This means all stock, both cattle and sheep, are in one yard which leaves the feeding more straight forward.

Body condition score

They have an excellent body condition score which is a reflection of the kind weather they had up until Christmas. This should allow me to postpone any meal feeding until six weeks before lambing. They will receive the 65 DM silage/haylage ad-lib - it has a DMD value of 69, ME value of 11.0 and a crude protein of 13.5%. This should allow adequate maintenance throughout mid pregnancy. Their body condition score will also be monitored on a regular basis when they have been foot bathed. Scanning is pencilled in for the last Saturday in January, which is 90 days since the rams were put out with the ewes. Because I followed a synchronization protocol, I would hope that very close to a 100% of the ewes were covered in the first week.

Lambing

This will hopefully lead to a very tight lambing schedule. Even though I only have a small flock, they still need the same amount of supervision as a large flock. Throw a full-time off-farm job into the mix and soon things can get busy.

My intention is to cover the night shift and then have someone come in during the day to carry out all the routine jobs while I’m at work. But as anyone knows, farming, and particularly sheep farming, is never that straight forward. I have, however, a number of lessons I’ve learned the hard way over the past number of years.

Lessons

  • Have the ewes on the correct plane of nutrition, so that they're fit not fat. Make sure to have plenty of milk, too, as there is nothing more demoralising then a ewe with no milk.

  • Make sure to have lambing pens, something I didn’t have in the past and hope to increase this year.

  • Have a plentiful supply of grass for ewes and lambs so no supplementation is needed, because I find this just creates a recipe for mis-mothering.

  • Have a white board in the lambing shed so anything that’s done or needs doing is recorded. This is something that’s definitely been installed this year, because there will be four people in and out of the yard in total.

  • A lambing camera. I find all the trouble happens in the last dozen of sheep left in the shed. Fatigue and lack of interest start to kick in and sheep aren’t been watched as much. This for me is a dilemma. The farmyard is three miles from where I live and so a wired camera or wireless camera is not option. An internet camera is possible but an internet connection is necessary along with a strong 3G signal, which is something I can’t get in the yard. I would really like to go down this avenue so that I can monitor the sheep when I’m away on my day job and if a ewe was lambing towards the end I would be able to ring someone.

    • If anyone has any further experience or information it would be greatly welcomed.