Farmer Focus: Supplementing lambs but shearling ewes are good
© Tim Scrivener I think I totally jinxed the weather with my last article, when I said the farm was finally starting to green up.
That didn’t last long — just a month later, and we’re right back to the Gelston Sahara.
We’ve moved one group of ewes off the farm and onto fields that were mown for hay and had some regrowth.
See also: How to budget and allocate rotational grazing for ewes
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The second group is grazing on volunteer wheat, helping to conserve our haylage.
(I think they were pleased to just be able to eat something green.)
Last year, our outdoor lambing flock scanned lower than we’d hoped.
After taking blood samples, we discovered the cause was iodine deficiency, something we’ve struggled with before.
With that in mind, we’ve had bloods retaken to check current levels and determine which bolus will be most effective before tupping, as we really need more lambs to be able to keep our butchery growing.
In a normal year, we aim to finish all our lambs off grass.
Under conditions like this, we’ve had no choice but to supplement their diet using grass pellets, while maintaining rotational grazing.
The lambs we’ve put through our butchery have had just the right amount of fat covering, so at least we have still been able to maintain a quality product.
Our shearling ewes are in great condition this year.
There will be a couple we’ll need to cull due to lameness or not holding enough condition, but overall, this group is looking great — even though they’ve been grazing on some rough, old pasture.
Each year, we get pickier about the ewes we keep, which means our flock continues to improve.
We’ve gone through and culled the ewes that had the lightest lambs at weaning.
It’s probably one of my least favourite jobs: it’s tough to cull a healthy looking ewe, but if she can’t produce good lambs, she must (unfortunately) go.
It’s interesting how often the really fat ewes end up having the poorest lambs; they’ve been looking after themselves, not investing in their lambs, which is not a good trait.
Our stubble turnip and forage rape crop is up, yet could do with some water. It’s also been attacked by turnip sawfly and will now have to be sprayed.