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Early last week I received my application form for the second year of the Sheep Welfare Scheme in the post. The information in the pack suggested I could fill out the form online. I decided to log on to the Department’s website and fill out the form electronically. What a waste of time, as it wasn’t available to complete.
Given the Department’s history with IT, I don’t know why I was surprised. Why send out information stating we can apply online when the system hasn’t been updated to do so? I would have been better off using my time filling out the paper form and posting it off the traditional way. This, together with the lack of communication between sections within the Department, has left me infuriated.
Surely when you update information with the Department, you could expect it be updated right throughout their system. Not so, as I have found out.
Why is this information not in sync? It is as though divisions in the Department are in a relationship that has broken down and are giving each other the silent treatment.
Meanwhile, I have the ewes divided into groups according to due dates and litter size and I hope to start administering the 10-in-one vaccine shortly. I will vaccinate them over a number of weeks to give them the best chance of passing on natural immunity to lambs via colostrum when born.
I will also give the ewes another fluke and worm drench at the same time. As the ewes have been housed for over eight weeks, it gives me more options on drugs I can use that will be effective for the fluke stages present. This strategy allows me to rotate the active ingredients used to kill fluke on my farm to try and avoid any resistance building up in the future.
The wormer will clear out any worm burden in the ewes prior to lambing and reduce the amount of worm eggs shed on to pasture after the ewes go back to the field with their lambs.
The first group of ewes carrying triplets have been introduced to concentrates along with the quads from the Central Progeny Testing (CPT).
They are receiving 400g/hd/day of meal, which will be built up over the coming weeks to 800g to 1kg by their due date. For now, I am using an ordinary ration but will change to a 23% protein closer to lambing. This ration will be made up of soya meal, maize meal, barley and beet pulp nuts along with minerals and some molasses.
The ewe-carrying couples will start getting some ration supplement shortly as I have noticed their intake of silage started to drop off in the last week or so. I will monitor ewe body condition closely and move any ewes with poorer than ideal condition to different pens to allow for additional feeding. The ewe lambs and the repeats are still out on the Red Start and doing well. I plan on scanning them this week, after which I will divide them according to litter size and increase the level of concentrates that the multiples are receiving to meet the increasing requirements of their higher litter size.
With things still relatively quiet on the farm, I am considering travelling to one of the Teagasc National Sheep Conferences which are being held on 30 January in Loughrea and 1 February in Carrickmacross. From previous experience, they are worth attending, with top quality papers presented.
Finally, I would like to remind the readers that the sheep census needs to be returned before the end of the month (31 January).
Farmer Writes: top ‘fake news’ farming stories for 2018
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