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As is always the case, I find myself thinking two seasons ahead, so I’ve essentially spent the last two months trying to set up the farm for winter.
We’ve turned over a lot of ground in a bid to improve overall efficiency. Having such a good grass-growing season has allowed us to take 20% of the land area out and put it into new crops, while still having enough grass to keep all the ewes thriving and the weaned lambs on good, fresh grass.
There are two fields planted in brassica and two in grass. One field has stubble turnips with Italian rye grass on the endrig, and another is a mix of kale and main crop turnips.
The new grass mixes are suited to wet soils, with the ryegrass in the mix being 100% diploid, as opposed to more open tetraploid varieties. In one of the fields the mix includes 22% clover to hopefully provide a decent cut crop and a big feed for store lambs in early autumn.
The plan is to tup around half the ewes on the stubble turnips and then winter them through on the field of kale and turnips.
These two fields will then be put into grass next spring to be grazed over the summer. All the crops are through and looking well, considering how much torrential rain the fields have had since planting.
Weaned
Ewes have been weaned a month, with store sales ongoing. A total of 90 stock ewe lambs have been selected for breeding, based on weights and previous dam performance – they are easily the best we’ve had.
We sold all our cull ewes at weaning bar six, which look like the ones that everyone probably has and no one wants. With the ewes averaging £70 and a few island Blackies making slightly more than I paid for them (having had a lamb from them), it worked well.
The six reprobates that we have left will be sent to the SRUC veterinary lab for a full investigation and post-mortem assessment. While it’s not cheap to do this, it is the gold standard for doing a flock health check-up, with everything from disease to mineral status and history assessed.
We can’t manage problems without knowledge. This, and the turnover of the old grass swards, is all part of a plan to invest into the business while we have some assurances of support payments. Once the support isn’t assured, then neither is the investment.
Calves
Within the suckler herd, we’ve had all the calves in and weighed at the same time as we were taking the bulls out.
The weights were good, but the main purpose of weighing is so we can build a better picture of which cows are performing best within the herd.
The autumn-born calves were weighed at weaning in mid-August and are now being paddock-grazed around some aftermath.
When I checked their weights against last year I found they were almost identical, apart from the fact that last year’s were weighed in October.
So this year’s calves look to be performing significantly better, but keeping them going will provide the next challenge.
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