Weather difficulties: A high volume of rainfall is creating havoc on sheep farms. Farms are affected to varying degrees, but with more heavy rainfall forecast yesterday and a poor forecast continuing into the weekend, there will be very few areas with high sheep populations unaffected. The sheep feature on pages 44 and 45 provides advice for mid-pregnancy feeding. The farms featured have access to housing, but on many farms out-wintering ewes, this is not on option. It is easier said than done, but if supplementing ewes outdoors, try to confine ewes to a drier area of the farm to allow remaining areas a chance to recover and generate a level of grass cover for spring grazing. Dry ewes will consume in the region of 1kg to 1.2kg dry matter intake per day depending on feed availability and quality. At 25% dry matter, a tonne of pit silage will feed 50 ewes for five days. A 650kg round bale of silage at 30% dry matter will feed 50 ewes for about four days, while a 250kg round bale of hay at 85% dry matter will also provide about four days of feeding for 50 ewes.

Supplementing lambs: Current weather is also severe on finishing lambs. With grass dry matter reducing significantly and poor utilisation, grazing on heavy lands with wet underfoot conditions will be unlikely to even meet maintenance demands. Concentrate supplementation of 0.5kg to 0.8kg will be required to maintain liveweight where grazing is low quality or grass supplies are scarce, while supplementation will need to be increased to 1kg or higher to obtain a level of performance. Where underfoot conditions are very poor, performance will be aided by housing, where possible. This has the potential to increase performance from 50g to 100g outdoors to 200g to 250g if feeding very high-quality silage (75 to 78 DMD) and 0.7kg to 0.8kg meals or transferring lambs on to an ad-lib concentrate finishing diet. At current lamb prices, high concentrate diets are the most economical finishing system and are the only real option where silage is not top-quality. If progressing down this route, be careful to build feeding rates over a period of 10 days to two weeks and ensure concentrates contain the correct mineral and vitamin balance. Access to a fresh supply of water and balancing feed allocations to prevent feed going stale are also critical.

Fodder crops: It may be necessary to introduce forage supplementation and delay allocating fresh fodder in current weather. Where conditions are very mucky, daily allocations will be required or animals may need to be moved to grassland, especially if lambs are approaching slaughter weights. Remember, fodder crops are low in magnesium, copper and iodine and therefore supplementation may be required.

Winter shearing: Earlier housing is leading to more farmers considering shearing ewes for winter. Advantages include more animals being housed in a given area, easier monitoring of body condition and the birth of heavier lambs. Ensure wool is not damp before shearing, as this will significantly devalue the wool. Also, it is recommended to only shear where ewes will have eight weeks’ regrowth and where ewes will not be released outdoors before the end of February. Be careful if shearing finishing lambs close to drafting with slaughter to check with your processor, as some are penalising for freshly shorn lambs. Research in Athenry has shown no performance advantage, but shearing can have management benefits if housing on slats.