Farmer Focus: Rough grazing picture sparks tupping rethink
James and Belinda Kimber © Kathy Horniblow We have been playing hunt-the-grass this month, largely unsuccessfully.
The false hope of a little rain at the start of September was dashed with high temperatures and more wind.
The herbal ley – drilled after our maize – germinated and died in the middle of fields; small strips of green under hedges show the potential that could have been.
See also: 5 tips for managing livestock and grazing in drier weather
About the author
The grazing picture looks pretty rough at the moment. Why we have missed the rain, I’m sure some meteorological expert could tell me.
The result is just a big question: what to do with the sheep?
Tupping could be delayed, but I really don’t think the grazing platform will recover with daylight hours and temperatures falling.
Do we tup some indoors? Can we put them outside again?
We have sufficient good-quality silage for a normal winter. This would take pressure off other ewes to spread out round the grazing.
We haven’t bought any gimmers, so are shorter on numbers. However, this will result in lower lamb numbers next year.
We are looking after a thin group of 200 ewes feeding 400g/day of ewe rolls and we intend to feed right through to get these back to good condition.
This is going to cost £14/ewe; normally it would be no charge through eating quality grass.
Lambs above 35kg have been put onto pellets as the 45kg lambs have been sold.
Again, expensive in time and feed, but still slightly better than selling as stores.
A hard-nosed business person would sell the ewes, store lambs and silage, have an easy winter and see what the spring brings.
I think that is the real problem: I am not a hard-nosed businessman.
No doubt we get attached to the animals and ultimately must enjoy the career, though at times it is definitely challenging.
We were not in the melee of the Sustainable Farming Incentive application this time at home, but a few of our landlords were hoping to get new schemes.
There was some criticism of the time taken and delays, but in my opinion the money would just have run out quicker.
What will be the budget going forward?
I saw one politician crowing about farmers getting nearly £1bn over the next three years.
Previously it was about ring-fencing £5bn for two years; lucky we have great mathematicians in parliament.