Farmer Focus Livestock: Iain Green sees light at the end of tunnel

The old saying “if March comes in like a lamb it will go out like a lion” has been true to form. The month started with perfect weather for some spring work, but ended with wet and cold, soaking the fields next in line for drilling.

Due to cattle prices maintaining their recent values, throughout April, we will sell our year-old store bullocks along with the remaining cull cows. The last batch of cull cows sold a few weeks ago topped at £1100 and averaged £951.

Spring calving is well under way, but it has been hard to send cows and their new-born calves outside in the bad weather. There is no doubt this is far healthier for calves, but it does not look good when you see fields poached. These will need some re-seeding and rolling when the weather dries up.

Last year’s lambs are nearly all away, but despite being fed concentrate, the last batch has been slow to finish. The only saviour has been the hogg price staying up well.

Lambing is in full swing, but has not been without its usual trouble. I hope that when we come to sell this year’s lambs they will be at the current level and might let us forget these problems. Ewes are thinner than normal, but I think this has saved some of our usual prolapse difficulties, though we may have to feed more after lambing.

Pigs which were sold three weeks ago averaged more than £110 a head clear, which is the highest price we have ever sold pork pigs for. Thank goodness we have eventually reached the end of the long, dark tunnel.