Farmer Focus: William Slinger

LAMBING IS upon us once again. The weather has been with us, it having been dry on the whole and early lambs have enjoyed a good start.

There always seems to be a fine line between arrival of the first lambs and the first grass. This year was no exception, but with what seemed only days to spare the coming of spring brought a welcome bite of grass.

 Early feeding of ewes seems to have paid dividends with good lamb weights and plenty of milk. We are far better off with a good pair of twins which can soon be turned into new pasture than with too many triplets. Triplets never tend to do quite as well in the long run and take a lot more out of the ewe.

 Keeping a simple system in place for handling sheep and lambs is always important, as there are always more than enough difficulties that come along to complicate matters as it is.

It just about sums regulation up when I read the requirements for use in different countries on the box of tailing rings. We must do everything here within at least a week, however in New Zealand about nine months is soon enough.

We have continued supplementary feeding of ewes well into April. By way of trying something different from time to time, we have used a Beltex ram, along with a few Texels, on our Mule gimmer lambs this year. As far as lambing them goes, this trial has been a successful one, but the acid test will be in the marketplace.

Despite ram vendors” optimistic accounts of rapid weight gain, we shall still have to wait a little longer to discover just how well they will do. But it will be interesting to see how they progress.

 Meanwhile, the first, and with some pastures last, fertiliser applications will be going on before too long. This always provides a good opportunity to see all fields at the same point in time.