Like a lot of farmers, I will have made my annual trip to the Ploughing Championships this week. I have a few items that I want to make enquiries about for the farm and, with all the companies in one place, getting quotes and specs as well as seeing the items will be a big bonus.

Most of us tend to get caught up in everything that is going on within the site as well as catching up with friends – but how many of us actually see some ploughing while there? This year I am going to make a bit more of an effort to get out to see some of the actual ploughing.

For me, watching the horse ploughing holds more of an attraction but I’m sure Mr Potterton would be a better judge than I am on tillage matters.

Drafting lambs

Back on the sheep end of things, lambs continue to be drafted as they come fit for slaughter. At present, I have about 56% of the lambs sold which is about 10% less than this time last year. With the shorter days this time of year, I feel that the grass doesn’t have the same finishing power as it does during the summer so I am going to introduce some meal to the ewe lambs that are on the grass in an effort to get them moving off the farm a bit quicker.

As they have done the most of their growing at this stage I shouldn’t need to feed a large amount to finish them now. The ram lambs have been grazing the early sown Redstart and the majority of them have been finished at this stage. All going to plan what is left will be finished shortly and I can let the field freshen up for grazing with ewes later in the year. The forage crops that were sown in August are making good progress and the crops will help to keep some of the stock outside for a considerable period into the winter helping to reduce my silage requirement.

At present there are about 20 days grazing ahead with growth only just starting to get going ahead of demand in the last couple of weeks. I plan on putting out another bag of CAN/acre across the farm this week in an effort to get a good bank of grass built up for the autumn. As we move into October I will be drawing up my plan for closing the fields up for the winter rest period so that I have adequate grass built up for ewes and lambs next spring.

Wetter pastures

My first priority will be to graze the wetter pastures as these will be the slowest to start growing in the spring. These will be followed by the fields with the most shelter and which I plan to put the ewes and lambs out into first.

My recently reseeded fields will be the last as hopefully they will be the quickest to respond to favourable growth conditions in the spring. Creating a grazing plan can be difficult to do as the breeding season gets under way here with all the different breeding groups going around the farm.

As an attempt to maintain a good plane of nutrition in front of the ewes during this time I will use temporary sub divisions with electric fencing. This will force them to graze out fields sufficiently without putting adverse demands on the ewes or causing too much damage to fields if the weather is bad. Last year, I invested in a couple of NoMate harnesses for the rams. These allow me to use entire rams for the ram effect, as they prevent them impregnating the ewes while out teasing them. Once the ram is introduced to the ewes, some ewes will show heat almost immediately. This will be a silent heat, that means that the ewe, while in heat will not show outwardly signs of being in heat.

The remainder of the ewes will come into heat six days later. This will also be a silent heat. At this stage, the ewes’ reproductive system will have been kick-started and the target date for joining the rams will be 14 days after the initial ram introduction. About 30-40% of the ewes should be cycling at day 17 and the remainder should be cycling six days later. All going to plan this should lead to a compact lambing in the spring.