The recent small amount of rainfall here in the last week or so has been a welcome sight. Little as it was, it has brought about a renewed vigour into the grass growth on the farm, bringing it from 28kg DM/ha a fortnight ago to 86kg DM/ha this week.

With this burst of growth and the return of silage fields into the rotation, I should have plenty of grass for stock to graze while also reseeding a couple of extra fields.

The two fields in question have reasonable grass production performance annually but as they are predominantly old meadow grass, their production is primarily in the summer and with very poor performance in the shoulders of the year where costs can be reduced if grass is available.

I plan on including clover and plantain in the mix that goes in as was the case for the earlier reseeds this year. The plan is to graze these fields tight and stitch in the seed with a Moore uni-drill.

The fields will also get about 2t of lime applied to help with the breakdown of the old sward and balance the soil pH.

Breeding

As weaning has been completed for some time, the focus on the ewes is turning to the coming breeding season. Any ewes that had difficultly lambing, prolapse, bad elders or repeat lameness recorded have been culled from the flock. The ewes have been footbathed a few times and any that are showing signs of lameness will be grouped separately for additional treatment with anything not responding getting culled.

I will also start to pick out my replacements over the next few weeks with any surplus breeding ewe lambs going to regular customers. The ewes will be entering a rising plane of nutrition as they are following around behind the lambs and as lamb numbers reduce the volume and quality of grass available to them increases.

Trade

The lamb trade is taking a battering at the moment. My last load of lambs had a 12.5% reduction in price when compared with the same week last year. Unfortunately for us farmers taking these hits, it’s hard to understand why the supermarkets seem to be still selling our product for the same price as last year. Where is the margin going? Did the factories take less of a return last year?

Doubtful, but are they making a better margin this year? I think it is time that the factories were made more accountable in providing a better return to the producers who keep them supplied with product as without us farmers, getting up at all hours of the night during the spring, they wouldn’t have the quality product we supply them.

It seems to be costing us more and more to gain access to these additional markets that the factories are getting into but we have yet to see any benefit. We are having to do far more and earn far less. I would like to see more transparency of the factories’ and retailers’ profits as it would be easier to take a lower price if it was visible that they too were taking less profit. I also think it is time the Government looked at how Brexit is distorting the regular sheep trade as UK farmers continue to push lambs on in order to have them moved before the next deadline for withdrawal arrives (approximately 100 days’ time). What happens if we get another extension and we enter the unknown yet again? Turbulent times ahead, I fear.

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