The summer holidays are well under way for Alison and the children while mine have come and gone. It was wonderful to get away to France as a family and to forget about the headaches that the weather has been causing us this year. It was a great holiday and I couldn’t resist but do a bit of farming out the window of the car. It was strange to see the French countryside far greener than ours and the journey home from the ferry was like driving through a different country.

Our 40 shades of green are now resembling 40 shades of brown. Now that we are back and Mia and Drew are out around the farm more during the day eager to help, there are also extra safety concerns to consider around the place.

I have to take care of simple things like ensuring a secure play area for them and setting strict ground rules for when they are out helping on the farm like wearing hi-vis vests and only coming out when accompanied by myself or Alison. You can never be too cautious though.

With grass growth practically non-existent at the moment the ewes are being given a fairly tight run as whatever grass is coming, I want to prioritise it for the lambs for now.

Body condition

Body condition on the ewes is good all considering and I can allow them to lose a bit for now, but I will have to keep a close eye that they don’t lose too much as it could make it hard to get it back in time for mating.

By keeping the ewes tight, I have increased the number of fields the lambs have access to so this should help build grass covers quicker especially when we get a bit of moisture. I am holding off spreading fertiliser for now, once the rain comes I will get some out on the fields by the river as I think they are the least moisture deficient at the moment and will respond quicker.

With all the ewes dried off now it is time to assess how many ewes are to be culled from the system. These ewes will have 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.

I have also pulled out any ewes that are the least bit lame into a separate batch for treatment. Any that don’t respond to treatment will also be culled. With ewes being culled from the flock it is important to notify the Department if numbers drop below the reference number for the sheep welfare scheme.

I am strongly considering keeping some extra mature ewes in the flock this year for breeding and holding off breeding the ewe lambs till they are hoggets. I have been a strong advocate for breeding ewe lambs in the past but given the year we had to date, I’m not sure how many will be up to the task this coming autumn.

I think as we try to navigate our way through the current difficulties, the effects could be far reaching and a difficult autumn/winter is in prospect as we try to pick up the pieces.