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Last week, I was reminded of a massive part of modern European history.
I was 10 years old when the Berlin wall came crashing down and can still remember the scenes of infectious jubilation playing out on the news. With it came the knowledge and realisation that the world was now somehow different.
To mark the 30th anniversary of this event, the cows have kindly recreated the whole scenario by romping through the stone dyke, heading westward, and taking about 16ft of it with them.
However, at this point history stops repeating. Their jubilation was short-lived, and they are now in the shed where they shall remain until March. Hopefully by then I will have found the time to put the dyke back up, but it will probably not be as smart as before.
Sheep
The tups are out and doing what they are kept for. We are using stubble turnips for one group. It’s not a great crop due to the wet weather in August, but what is there looks to be keeping that 160 looking really well.
Overall, the ewes are all looking as good as I’ve ever had them at this time of year. The tups are averaging 70 ewes each, with the Beltex and Lleyn tups getting over 80.
I’ll put tup lambs out for the second turn to help ensure everything is covered.
Our ewe numbers have slipped back below 400 this year, due to us making the decision not to buy any replacement gimmers. With our homebred ewe lambs looking the best they ever have, the decision was taken to tup the strongest 40.
Ten acres of new grass should provide enough to keep them, plus a lamb, going next summer.
Post-mortem results
In my last article, I said we had gone down the route of doing a post-mortem on three cull ewes to investigate health and mineral status.
Thankfully, it was all good news. They were free from all the gremlins that can’t be vaccinated against and the mineral status was generally good. The only hiccup is a lack of selenium.
The ewes had free access to minerals all summer, which have selenium in them, so we clearly have a significant lacking on the farm.
We will have to do something more targeted next year to ensure ewes are well covered, but when it comes to environmental concerns, we are already doing our bit.
Going green
The increased percentage of biofuel in the red diesel has given a perfect opportunity for the bacteria to create a sludge in the fuel system of the buggy and one of the tractors.
A wee touch of frost convinced both vehicles to grind to a halt, making sure we don’t burn anymore of the planet’s dwindling fossil fuel resource.
While this has made feeding and bedding stock even more challenging, we are now truly green. Perhaps we might even get a £3/kg top up from some climate fund? Wishful thinking, I know.
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