We have not had seven consecutive dry days since 7 August. This came back into my head yesterday as I drove to Carrigallen Mart to try to start buying store heifers again - that’s a whole other story as the live trade is on fire.

As I headed northwest, it just got wetter and wetter and I wasn’t 100% sure in places whether they were lakes or floods.

As I arrived back to a dry farmyard last night and walked out to dry fields this morning, I realise how lucky we are to farm in this area.

Lambing

Lambing is going surprisingly well after such a bad autumn. We were tight for grass, although almost all of the ewes are in super order. We are probably just past the halfway mark. The flock is split in two for management and labour reasons.

Now, we had 15 mistakes in mid-January - ”somebody” left a gate open last September and a Suffolk ram didn’t need to be asked twice to take his opportunity.

We really started lambing 24-25 February and that first batch are nearly all lambed as of today.

We have had one prolapse so far and no vets attended a ewe yet. Needless to say that ewe has received a red card and as soon as her work is complete here this year, she will be on the trailer.

Zero tolerance

We have a zero-tolerance policy on culling problem ewes.

Ewes are milking well and apart from 24 hours of pressure during storm Jorge, everything is going well.

We have had a few successful adoptions and a few unsuccessful ones too.

We have lost a few lambs, one or two with a veil not breaking, one or two with watery mouth. Some of their mothers were lacking colostrum and they have received a red card too.

If 95% of your ewes milk well off the same diet, I see no reason to give the one that didn’t a second chance.

Nuts

Ewes are grouped in pens of 45 according to litter size. They are on an 18% protein nut, which we have used here forever. Hay, haylage and silage are fed as well.

We cleaned out the pens twice this winter and used lots of wheaten straw - we feel wheaten is better under ewes. It has less chaff and for this reason it definitely doesn’t get bound up on their feet as much as barley straw.

Even though most would say barley straw is the best for absorption, I think wheaten is better, it doesn’t have that shiny waxy coating on the stem and I feel it stays drier. The knee test is a good way to find out about how dry your sheep bedding is.

Cloudy eye

We had a huge issue with cloudy eye in some ewes this winter. Luckily, one treatment sorted the majority - 10 to 12 ewes out of every 45 got it and we treated new cases daily to keep on top of it.

Interestingly, the very first ewe to get it got it three times. I don’t believe it’s a silage, hay or shed thing. We haven’t had it here in years.

It’s amazing that some ewes got it and others didn’t, which totally rules out the theory of it being from silage or hay.

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