Farmer Focus Livestock: Charles Armstrong needs more ewes

The gas bottles and welder have been used a lot lately, but 600 acres of grass is now sown. About 300 acres were sown using a Vaderstad Carrier. This worked well, but the following 300 acres of stubble were worked using only the Opico grass harrow.

Straw baling is finished, but we have only baled about one third of our normal amount due to poor crops. This means none will be sold this year and what we have will be used sparingly.

Putting a new 18in drain through the farm buildings has cost us a small fortune, but the old, smaller one couldn’t handle all the water we’ve had this year. Twice our sheds have been completely flooded this year alone.

Another small fortune has been spent buying tups. We set off to Kelso tup sales in need of more than 100 tups. After no time at all, it became apparent my budget wasn’t enough. The quality of tups at Kelso was tremendous and we returned with 67 Bluefaced Leicesters some Charollais and some Texels.

Now new, modern marquees are used for these sales there are no guy ropes holding them up. This in turn means no halters to pull the tups with. So our first class hauliers A R Transport from Kelso acquired the task of bringing them home.

With grass sown and tups bought, my attention has turned to buying ewes. We need 6000 so almost anything with teeth and two tits will do fine. This operation is well under way.

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