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Thankfully, for many of the NI sheep programme farmers, grass growth has started to increase after the recent rain.
However, with average Grasscheck figures of approximately 55kg DM/ha/day on beef and sheep farms, compared to the seasonal average of over 70 kg, the farmers are carefully watching their grass covers.
This is especially true for Co Antrim farmers who have received very little rain of late.
At this stage, most of the programme's hill and upland sheep farmers have finished lambing. The recent spell of favourable weather has been very welcome, with ewes and lambs being turned out to the fields within 24 hours of lambing.
Annaclone, Co Down
Paraic, who lambs ewes in two batches due to limitations on housing, has been making full use of his mobile handling unit recently.
Paraic has been using EID (electronic identification) recording for several years and has recently recorded weights and growth rates in the 2020 lamb crop.
At the same time as weighing lambs, he also administered the first dose for nematodirus to the first batch of lambs.
He plans to make greater use of his EID system this year, making use of weight records for lambs at eight weeks of age. This data will be used to identify the best ewe lambs to be kept as replacements.
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