Farmer Focus: Early lambs will provide welcome summer income

Our first group of 200 ewes, mostly Aberfield cross Welsh, started lambing early March indoors. A further 600 lamb outdoors throughout April.

I prefer outdoor lambing, but I also like selling lambs in early June from the March lambing group. The income by then is very welcome.

See also: Tips on minimising soil compaction on silage ground

About the author

Edward Evans

Edward Evans farms a 178ha upland farm in Powys in partnership with his wife, Sue. They run a flock of 800 Tregaron-type Welsh and Aberfield ewes, wintering 180 ewe-lamb replacements and rearing 80 Wagyu weanlings up to 18-20 months on a rotational grazing system.

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Some of the April lambing group are also inside but will be turned out to lamb.

The rest are being fed nuts outdoors at the farthest parts of the farm; they will be brought down to the lower fields for lambing when concentrate feeding stops for the single- and twin-bearing ewes.

Although there is little grass as such, moving them to a different location seems to keep them content. They ignore the quad bike after a couple of days and settle down to lamb in a more natural way.

After lambing, ewes move onto fields that have been closed off since late autumn, and no concentrate is fed thereafter.

Other winter work has included having an excavator in with a tree shear on. Low branches around the fields have been cut and a large overgrown thorn hedge has also been cut to make it more manageable.

We have hedges around all our silage fields, of varying heights and widths, and hopefully we can improve their condition under the new Sustainable Farming Scheme.

Soil sampling has been carried out on some of the silage fields and permanent pasture. Soil type is heavy clay and, higher up the farm, peat, which means a hot dry summer like last year suits here.

It feels like a constant battle with soil pH. Is pH critical on heavier soils? Some say not. Latest samples had an average pH of 5.8, and P and K levels were adequate. Soil organic matter ranged from 13.3 to 27.1.

Farmyard manure from the cattle and housed sheep is an important part of our system, with chemical fertiliser only used to produce a silage crop.

The cattle are also our grassland managers and nutrient producers while grazing on a rotational system.