A sign that the autumn is upon us can be seen daily around the yard as the trees drop their leaves of various autumnal colours to the ground and, along with this, the breeding season is in full swing here on the farm.

The first cycle has just finished with the natural-service ewes; all going well we won’t have many repeats. At this stage, I will start raddling the rams and changing the colours every 10 days. This will help identify any ewes that are repeating and it will also identify what ewes are due between different dates come the spring.

We will be pulling the sponges from the different groups of ewes for AI at various stages over the next week, with insemination taking place two days later for each group. We have three different groups this year to AI.

We will remove the sponges at three different times each day to coincide with the approximate time of AI in the morning, middle of the day and afternoon.

This is to hopefully get the best possible chance of conception.

We will then repeat this process with the second and third batch on their respective days.

The first cycle has just finished with the natural-service ewes; all going well we won’t have many repeats

The number of lambs has reduced well lately, with 15% of the lambs remaining on farm. The few remaining ram lambs have been started on some meal and are performing well. I will continue to draft the ewe lambs from 45kg and the rams from 46kg as they are killing out well at these weights at present, with very little in the way of discounted meat being given away.

Grass growth over the last few weeks has been very good overall and I have plenty of grazing ahead at this stage. I have drawn up my autumn rotation plan and will stick to it, as my big objective now is to set the farm up for next spring.

The Redstart and cover crops in the stubble ground have been doing well over the last month and it will keep the ewes outside longer into the year and stretch my silage supply further.

I have drawn up my autumn rotation plan and will stick to it, as my big objective now is to set the farm up for next spring

We are planning to get the last of the farmyard manure spread on to some of the fields, with the highest requirement for nutrients such as the ones that have the lowest P and K indexes on the farm before the closed period and while field conditions allow. As I am trying to build soil fertility on the farm, I take regular soil samples which help me to decide where my farmyard manure is applied yearly.

With farm work a little slacker at the moment, myself, Alison and the children are turning our hands to preserving some of the produce which we grew in the garden over the year. The children had fun growing vegetables this year though I think their favourite were the sunflowers.

Hopefully we will be able to build on this next year.