The pace at which things are done here on the farm has had to slow down. My quad is out of action at present and all stock movement is being done the old fashioned way, with me on foot and my dogs following my commands; well following them most of the time.

It always amazes me how, once we get used to the help of modern machinery and equipment, we forget some of the joys and hardships that they replaced. While the exercise is probably doing me no harm, it is most certainly taking a lot longer to complete the daily tasks.

I have managed to make my final decision on which of the ewe lambs will be retained for replacements this year. As my flock is participating in Sheep Ireland’s Central Progeny Testing (CPT) programme, I must keep a proportion of ewe lambs from each sire used for mating on the farm from last year. These ewe lambs will remain on the farm and continue to contribute to their sires’ (and bloodlines’) evaluations for the years to come as we see how they perform as breeding ewes in a commercial situation.

After these have been selected, I make up the difference from the best remaining ewe lambs available to me. This is helped by the fact that all lambs’ performance data is being recorded on farm and, unlike previous years, I have a surplus of suitable candidates. These surplus ewe lambs will be sold on as replacements to other farmers.

As I have made my final selection early, I have plenty of time to implement my replacement vaccination policy. As usual, I intend on breeding my replacements. I had the nightmare experience of a Toxoplasmosis outbreak a couple of years ago, so I will be vaccinating for it again this year.

Fortunately, I haven’t experienced any enzootic abortion here, so I won’t need to vaccinate for it. The vaccines for these are live and therefore they must be used immediately after receiving them to guarantee best results. Administering early is essential in order to have protection from these problems before breeding begins and exposure can be costly.

To give sheep adequate protection, it needs to be given three to four weeks before rams are turned out and from past experience, I think going sooner rather than later gives a better result.

Grass cover

With it now being August, I need to start building grass cover across the farm to carry the ewes until late December. My grazing schedule is a little behind where I would like to have it. I have also seen evidence of a lack of moisture in parts of the farm, despite the mixed weather.

Ideally I would like to have 17 days ahead now building to 40 by mid-October so, with this in mind, I am going to put out a bag of CAN on all grazed fields now and follow up with an additional application later if required. I am also planning to sow a forage crop as I found the ewe lambs wintered very well on it last year but after last year’s disaster with the grass seed being smothered due to the extremely wet weather, I don’t plan to put it in with it.

Instead, I plan to reseed the field next spring when conditions should be more favourable.