The year is drawing to a close and I for one will be glad to see the back of it. It has been a challenge for the most of it, between torrential rain, snow storms and the drought of the summer. Despite all this, the lambs performed well, with the last of them due to head off to the factory next week.

The main lessons that I learned this year were the importance of grass measuring and budgeting as without using these I would have spent a lot of money on purchased feed over the year.

The ewes for AI remain out on the last of the fields to be grazed before they move on to some of the Redstart next week. This should keep them outside until the middle of next month. The natural service ewes have adjusted well to the Redstart they have been assigned to with no problems arising from their change of diet. I plan to scan these shortly and the other ewes will be done in the new year. The ewes will be divided into groups according to their prospective due date and litter size once they are housed.

Production

As the grazing year has finished, I have been going over the production figures for the various fields around the farm and comparing them to what they produced over the previous years. I have had to allow for the weather conditions of this year when doing this as the whole production on the farm has been down due the dry summer.

Along with the production figures, I am checking the soil fertility status of each field to help make up a plan for next year as regards what fertiliser is needed and which fields may need to be reseeded. One thing I have noticed from this year’s soil sample results is that a lot of the potassium levels have come back lower than expected. I do wonder if the wet weather earlier this year had an impact on this due to extra leaching. This will have to be remedied if I am to keep grass production at a sufficient level for the stocking rate.

Paperwork

I find this is the month of the year that a lot of paperwork is done due mainly to the limited amount of work I can do outside with the short days. It is also the time of year that a lot of annual bills are due.

Spending time going through all the different options and suppliers available is a very necessary job as often we can make cost savings by taking the time to compare different electric, phone and insurance providers and switching to whichever have the best rates at the time. The effort of a few phone calls can be worth it. As the saying goes, “look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.”

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy and safe Christmas.