This September has been a bit strange around these parts. Without an All-Ireland hurling final to go to, or a win to celebrate, I have had no excuse for not getting through the workload on the farm. Things have been busy here. We hosted a successful farm walk on 29 August. Alison is back to work, Mia started playschool and I have been getting the last of the straw stacked into the sheds and getting the ewes ready for tupping.

At the moment there is a batch of ewes in the yard daily as they are footbathed, condition scored and vaccinated. I like to have all foot problems, etc., sorted out before the rams are let out so that ewes are handled as little as possible during the tupping period.

My ewe lambs are doing well at the moment and are routinely going through the footbath to help sort out any foot problems. Any of these that are lame will be removed and sold with the other lambs as I don’t want to create extra work during the year if I can help it.

In my experience, foot problems with ewes often reoccur. I’ve also just given them their second clostridial shot and administered their toxoplasmosis vaccine.

This is the second year I’ve given them Toxovax. Two years ago I had a toxoplasmosis storm which resulted in half my ewe lambs scanning empty. The following spring was tough. I didn’t know what to expect as I experienced a lot of miscarriages and rotten lambs in the flock.

Even with this in mind, I have chosen not to vaccinate my ewes for the Schmallenberg virus this year. I know I am at risk of letting myself in for a terrible time next spring, but I must weigh up the cost of vaccinating my whole flock from scratch.

This would be a huge burden on costs, considering the year we’ve had with extra meal and fertilizer which had to be purchased earlier in the year. At the moment, there doesn’t appear to be any guarantee that vaccinating would only have to be done once in the lifetime of a sheep. An annual whole flock vaccination programme, at its current price, would have a massive effect on any profit margin.

Dates

Because of this, I have pushed my lambing dates back to March as opposed to previous years when it began in mid-February.

I hope that midge activity will have reduced substantially, thus lessening the chance of midges biting my ewes during the gestation period. I have to keep in mind that there is a 25% chance that my flock could be affected.

There are also the extreme instances of 30% to 40% of sheep being affected in some flocks. This seems to be mainly an issue in early lambing flocks which are exposed to the high midge activity at the critical time of gestation.

I’ve got the last of my reseeding done for this year, in the last week. The field got an application of four tonne/acre of lime before 2,000 gallons/acre of pig slurry was applied and grass seeds were stitched in.

I’ve never reseeded by stitching before but if this works out well, I could see myself doing it more often. It is more cost effective and easier than the traditional methods. I hope to take a light grazing off this in about six weeks time, which should help get it tillering out and set the field up nicely for next spring’s grazing.

I’m hoping to go out with the final round of fertilizer over the farm during this week at a rate of 10 units/acre to help build up my covers for the remainder of the year and a drop of rain wouldn’t go astray either!

Preparations are under way here to host a sheepdog trial this weekend.

With handlers coming from across Ireland, it should be a great opportunity to see some of the best sheep dogs in the country at work. Knowing my sheep, I am sure they will be put through their paces!