This time last year, I mentioned how shed space was at a premium, with any spare space taken up with lambing pens. This year is no different. To be honest, it is actually in short supply. I had planned to have a new shed ready to house the increased numbers, but the delays in planning have meant that it is yet to get off the ground.

At present, I have about 100 individual pens set up around the yard in advance of the start of lambing. Unlike last year, where the ewes eased themselves into their stride, giving me time and extra space in the sheds to set up the additional pens required, this year I expect to lamb down approximately 200 ewes in the space of four to five days. These are of course the ewes which were artificially inseminated for Sheep Ireland. I have been told to expect somewhere in the region of 75 to 80 ewes to lamb down on the busiest day. Now that will be fun.

Lambing is kicking off with a number of ewes having lambed down over the weekend. The majority are due to lamb during the week.

Needless to say, I will need every pen available and will be hoping that there will be good weather for the week ahead, as it will be essential for getting ewes and lambs out as fast as possible to the fields of grass.

If the weather is as bad as it’s predicted to be and ewes and lambs can’t be let out promptly, they will be kept in grouping pens until the weather improves. These will be made up of old stables around the farmyard and I have created a makeshift shed in the emptying hay barn by using large, square straw bales to divide it into pens and create outer walls.

The routine here on the farm for ewes and lambs after lambing follows a certain pattern. Ewes which are sick to lamb are placed into a pen in their group pen.

This helps prevent other lambs wandering off while the ewe is busy having her second lamb or other ewes stealing them. As ewes lamb down, they are allowed lick lambs clean to bond with them before iodine is sprayed onto the navel. After a short while, they are moved to individual pens outside the main pen.

Once the lambs dry off completely, they are weighed, electronically tagged and all other information to do with the lambing is saved on the handheld device. The ewes and lambs will stay in these pens for about 12 hours before either being transferred to a group pen if the weather is bad or straight out to grass.

All pens will get a dusting of lime and fresh straw once the ewes and lambs are removed to help keep disease to a minimum. After a couple of days, all of the pens are cleaned out, limed and fresh straw is applied.

I have had a couple of opportunities to walk the farm since my last article and things are looking good, with grass growth of about 14kg DM/ha at present.

I have also spread some pig slurry here lately at a rate of 2,000gal per acre on some of the fields with the lowest grass covers and the fertilizer spreader will have its first outing of the year this week.

The remainder of the farm will be given an application of a half bag of urea per acre as soon as possible.