Farmer Focus: 12km fencing project put on back burner

Spring is here, bringing some ideal lambing weather, which has been gratefully received. With just a few rough nights, things have gone really well, but as we haven’t finished yet we don’t want to count our blessings too soon.

The spell of good weather even allowed me to blow the cobwebs off my BBQ half way through lambing when some friends visited.

Talking of friends, a very good friend, Richard Pullin, has helped us through lambing. He has been acting as head shepherd because I have been flat-out deer fencing through most of it with Dad – a job that also is coming to an end.

See also: Read more of our Livestock Farmer Focus writers

We have pulled up about 12km in all since the end of January, so that will be it for a while as shearing season is under way. The first of the Dorset flocks are looking to shear their out of season ewes before they go to the ram.

Meanwhile, my little brother Rowly (6ft 7in) has made the NZ Team, which is fantastic. They will be coming to the UK to represent NZ in the tests against Scotland, England and Wales, which will be challenging in conjunction with the lead up to his world record attempt in late July.

Dad has now gone home for all of his autumn work in New Zealand. I think he probably slept the whole way home. It has been a very busy, productive and challenging past few months, fencing in some pretty adverse conditions.

Pip and I now have all the deer on the farm. Things are quite tight as we come out of the winter months as we are planning to take out 50 acres to reseed with high sugar ryegrasses, clover and plantain and nine acres for this year’s fodder beet, but all the stock are looking well and thriving. We are both looking forward to seeing fawns on the ground sometime soon.

Weight gain trial

We have taken on a lamb liveweight gain trial this year in conjunction with the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and Germinal.

The trial will be looking at daily liveweight gain on: old ley vs quality ryegrasses and clover vs quality ryegrasses and clover plus herbs. The aim of this trial is to gather information that will help all livestock farmers maximise their opportunities from forage. Something we should all be looking to do.

The first weaning weight results for this trial will be presented at a reseeding demonstration day that we are hosting at our farm in conjunction with Germinal on 4 July.

We hope you can join us on the day and we can promise there will be plenty to interest all livestock farmers wanting to make more from their forage. 

Matt and Pip Smith run deer,1,085 breeding Romneys and Romney-cross Lleyn ewes across 121ha. Matt is also a shearing contractor and train sheepdogs.