Farmer Focus: Preparation for tupping begins

September heralds the start of us turning the tups in with the ewes.

So begins a bit of ewe preening and ram conditioning.

We have bought a couple of new Texel rams to replace some of the older ones that have been culled.

A couple of years ago we started investing in performance-recorded tups and bought a few from Innovis.

We have been pleased with them.

They don’t always look show ring special, but they cover plenty of ewes and still seem to keep condition.

See also: Learn more about Farmer Focus writers Mark and Helen Williams in their introductory column 

They do well on grass and although we do feed them a bit extra in the spring they would probably manage without it.

We have also been pleased with the lambs they produce.

This year we have purchased a couple of rams from Keith Williams, the 2013 Farmers Weekly Awards Sheep Farmer of the Year. I am sure we will be equally as pleased with their performance.

When docking some ewes our ever inquisitive five-year-old asked me why do we have to turn the rams in with the ewes. I quickly replied that he needed to ask his mother.

See also: Read more from our Livestock Farmer Focus writers

We have succumbed to the colder nights and have relit our biomass boiler.

A few days logging over the summer has increased our stack of drying timber.

I splashed out on a new bit of kit – a log splitter. We are lucky to be able to use our own timber.

We have woodland and hedges that need better management and the boiler gives us the incentive to spend more time managing some of this.

The show season has drawn to a close but we did enter a few competitions at our local show.

The boys managed to win a few prizes and I came second in the tallest stinging nettle competition. Although disappointed not to get first I was slightly relieved to not be the only one with overgrown stingies.

Mark and Helen Williams run a 100 ewes and 40 suckler cows across 283ha of part owned and rented land