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It’s the most wonderful time of the year. The sheep have that late pregnancy glow and the first lambs will be born around 4 January. Memories of last year’s lambing have receded, as they usually do, and the excitement is building for the arrival of new life on the farm.
After the lambs have landed safely, thoughts will quickly turn to driving them on with creep-feed and making sure there is no check to their daily weight gain. Early lamb means higher input costs so there is extra pressure to make sure the strongest lambs will hit 40kg by mid-April and the majority will be sold by mid-May.
Never before have I been so aware of the difference between the theory and reality of farming
Kill-out percentages will hopefully be 48% to 50% given the creep-feeding and good Charollais-Texel sires. All going well, we will deliver 19kg to 20kg carcases on the hook. Going on previous years and factoring in that Easter Sunday is on 12 April in 2020, the hope is that we will see an average price of €6.50/kg.
But let’s not get too far into predictions. Who knows what Brexit, the weather, the new IFA president, and other external factors hold in store for us?
Having said that, it is traditional at this time of the year to look ahead to the coming 12 months. For us, it means more changes and new enterprises as we continue to take back land that was previously leased out.
To be honest, it has been a struggle over the past few years as we increased the amount of land we were farming. More stock, new fencing and additional labour has not been easy to manage. And that’s ever before you make the mistakes that are part of any new learning process.
Never before have I been so aware of the difference between the theory and reality of farming. Part of me would like to invest big and set up all in one go the fencing and infrastructure suggested by best practice, but I am not comfortable taking on debt and essentially hiding such costs in the “fixed costs” column of the farm budget.
The biggest challenge for us then will be to continue growing slowly and steadily in 2020. Sheep and calf-to-beef (or store) enterprises are mostly bedded in now. Expanding these is cost-prohibitive for us at this stage so we will look into a small tillage operation, the financial and practical details of which will be worked out with a local contractor.
Tillage and sheep are good bedfellows too apparently, so it will be interesting to see how that works out.
Longer term
Our first herbal grass mix will be set in 2020 too. We were doing this anyway, but after two extremely useful chats, one with a local butcher and another with a knowledgeable chef who works with lamb, this herbal approach has taken on even more importance.
I spoke to both men with respect to marketing lamb under our own brand. Suffice to say, this will be a longer journey than I initially thought but we now have a solid understanding of what is required. Creating our own product, differentiated from other lamb, is the first step. From there, we can begin the next stage of marketing.
So, many challenges ahead, not just for 2020 but on into what we will soon call the twenties.
Happy new year to everyone and here’s to the little stretch in the evening that’s very much on the way.
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