Farmer Focus: Rig lamb foils plan to tighten lambing period

We’ve finished making our haylage and conditions couldn’t have been much better. It looks like it will be good-quality stuff, though we’ll get it tested before we start feeding it later in the year.

Good forage is too important to leave to chance, and it’s always reassuring to know exactly what you’re working with.

See also: Benefits of hay over silage for outwintered suckler cows

About the author

Louise Elkington

Louise Elkington runs 500 breeding ewes and a small suckler herd in Lincolnshire with husband Chris. Gelston Lamb sells all meat produced on the farm through pop-up shops, deliveries and catering. They have 54ha of grass on a farm business tenancy and agreements for stubble turnips and hay aftermaths.

Read more articles by Louise Elkington

We’ve also made some hay, which isn’t something we normally bother with. However, we had an extra field available to mow and, with haylage becoming increasingly expensive to make, it seemed sensible to take advantage of the dry spell.

It will be useful to have in reserve because, as every livestock farmer knows, you can never have too much forage in the shed. With weather patterns becoming increasingly unpredictable, having a backup supply provides valuable peace of mind.

This year, we decided to lamb our early indoor flock alongside our outdoor April-lambing flock in an attempt to tighten up the lambing period. It worked perfectly, until the ewe lambs we had kept back to lamb as shearlings started lambing too.

Fortunately, they had wintered on cover crops and were in fantastic condition. So far, I’ve only had to assist one out of 140, which is remarkable. While it certainly wasn’t part of the plan, it hasn’t turned into the disaster it could have been.

We maybe should have kept the rig lamb that spent a very enjoyable winter with them, as they are lambing exceptionally well.

We’ve put creep feeders out in the hope of weaning these lambs early. What started as an attempt to create a tight lambing period has somehow resulted in the longest lambing season in history.

The silver lining is that those extra lambs should be ready when prices are high later in the year.

The cows are now grazing behind the sheep in the rotation, which should help reduce worm burdens and tidy up what the sheep leave behind.

The butchery has been flat out. Our farm pop-up continues to go from strength to strength and we’ve also attended Lincolnshire Show.

The next major task is shearing. It will be a relief to get the sheep clipped as we’re still finding the occasional cast ewe, and the recent heat has brought plenty of flies.