July 2013

Throughout July I seriously considered renaming our farm ‘Khaki Farm’ to reflect the colour of all our grazing fields! Unfortunately, the lack of rain and any green grass, forced me to review my carefully thought out ‘Grazing Management Plan’ for weaning the lambs at the end of the month. So, rather than stress the lambs even more by taking them away from the ewes AND putting them onto a virtual starvation paddock, we left the happy families together for a couple of weeks longer.

On a positive note, the weeks of sunshine during May and June made the most wonderful hay; we mowed our 7acres on the 5^th and three exceedingly hot days later our barn was full of sweet-smelling meadow hay. Our years of walking and hand-weeding the hayfield has paid off and now we can be confident that it’s free of ragwort, thistle and dock, on which basis we’re able to sell all the excess, at a premium, to horse owners.

In so many ways it’s been a very peculiar year! Mid-month we weighed all our lambs in line with our pedigree Performance Recording; this gives us a really clear idea of how they are performing genetically. As a terminal sire breed, it’s important that the lambs gain weight steadily on mother’s milk and grass alone, and this year they have excelled themselves, giving us confidence that our flock improvement ‘strategy’ is heading in the right direction. Our best-performing Hampshire Down lambs achieved 0.43kgs Daily Liveweight Gain (DLG) from birth to 13 weeks off grass, and surprisingly, the best-performing lambs were all females!



Our “Poultry on Your Smallholding” programme is getting tantalisingly close to completion, but as with any livestock project, the filming schedule is largely dictated by the rhythms of nature! We’ve been following the progress of a gaggle of goslings – currently a few days old, yellow, fluffy and endearing – and we shall revisit them in a few weeks time to film their transition from heated barn and a regular supply of grower’s pellets, to an outdoor life being reared on lush Somerset pastures. Our final visit will be in winter, when they’ll be fully-grown and ready for their Christmas table destiny.

One of the best aspects of belonging to a Breed Society, in our case the Hampshire Down Sheep Breeders Association (HDSBA), is the social side, including flock visits organised by the Society. We travelled on from our filming in Somerset to a grassland farm in Devon. Set in the most glorious rolling countryside the farm was the birthplace of our current stock ram, Yarcombe Maximus! Our hosts, the Derryman family, are one of the top Hampshire Down breeders, and they also milk a herd of traditional Friesian cows – a lovely sight to see! A trailer ride around the farm had been arranged, so that we could see each of the breeding groups of sheep. The Yarcombe flock was established in 1970, and years of careful breeding have produced an outstanding ‘type’ of sheep that will reliably express itself in the next generation, meaning that a prospective purchaser of breeding stock can be confident of bringing the desired traits into his flock. Our Yarcombe ram has certainly brought some excellent genetics into our flock, as did the Owslebury ram before him, and the Westland ram before him!



At this time of year, with weaning imminent (weather permitting), my thoughts turn to planning the next year’s breeding cycle! Already, most of the pedigree sheep breeders are well into tupping (mating), aiming for a December or early January lambing, but I still prefer spring lambing so our ram won’t join the ewes until 1^st November for an April lambing. Nevertheless, there are many treatments that need to be scheduled, especially in view of the need to vaccinate against the Schmallenberg virus for the first time this year, as well as the Toxoplasmosis vaccine following our lambing losses this year – so I’ve been updating my Flock Health Plan for 2013-14. It still needs a bit of refinement, but I’m happy to share this as an example of the broad range of treatments and management actions the shepherd needs to consider each year! Click HERE to view my ‘work in progress’ – comments and questions welcome!

And finally, Carole Youngs of The Smallholder Series has written a comprehensive guide to ram selection and management for the autumn edition of Practical Sheep, Goats & Alpacas magazine, which will be on sale in all good newsagents later this month, so make sure you order your copy!

www.smallholderseries.co.uk

June 2013

The rather chilly weather during most of May took a sudden U-turn and the month ended with some scorching hot days, which had me in a flap about getting the sheep shorn. Our regular shearer has taken on more of the management of his family farm, so instead of getting the preferential treatment we’d been used to, it was a matter of lots of phoning and gentle nudges to get a new shearer in – and, of course, you don’t get to choose the date. So, shearing day saw just me getting 4 separate batches of sheep in, separating the ewes from the lambs, rolling fleeces, stuffing the woolsacks, checking tags and re-numbering the ewes. It was terribly well organised – NOT! But we all survived and the ewes eventually ended up back in the field with the right lambs.

Last month I wrote about the sad losses we experienced at lambing this year. They were typical of a particular type of disease, caused by an organism similar to that which causes coccidiosis in lambs, and that is spread in the environment by cats and rodents. A few sightings of an unfamiliar young black cat around the lambing field spurred my suspicion that our losses were probably due to Toxoplasmosis (commonly known as ‘Toxo’).

Our flock MV-testing was due in May, which involves taking blood samples from every single ovine on the premises (quite a logistical challenge!). I arranged for the vet to take some additional samples from the ewes that had lost their lambs at the same time. I was not surprised to find these returned positive for Toxo (and very pleased that all our sheep tested negative for Maedi Visna, confirming our MV Accredited status for a further 3 years). It is quite likely that the other breeding ewes were also exposed to Toxo at some point during their pregnancy, and would therefore have acquired some immunity to the disease. However, if we bring any of our homebred shearlings into the breeding flock next year, they will be naïve to the disease. Our only safe option for lambing next year appears to be vaccination for all the ewes, but firstly I will discuss all the options with our vet.

By the first week of June, several lambs were scouring: a greyish watery scour typical of coccidiosis. Samples were quickly scooped up and I delivered them to the vet. By late afternoon of the same day we had the results, the lab had found a massive count of cocci oocysts meaning the lambs required fast treatment if their gut lining wasn’t to be permanently damaged. The worm egg count was quite low, so I knew exactly what I needed to treat, and which drench to use. This ‘knowledge-based’ approach not only tells me exactly what I need to do, but it gives me the
reassurance that I’m doing the best for my lambs.

June was a very busy month in the production of our new DVD “Showing Sheep”. We’d arranged to follow 6 different pedigree sheep breeders through the process of preparing for and showing their sheep over the 3 days of the Royal Three Counties Show in Malvern, and this meant that pretty well every day was spent making arrangements and travelling to film the carding, trimming and general ‘tarting up’ that a show animal requires to stand any chance of winning a coveted rosette!



All our sheep-stars and their handlers looked tremendous at the show, and we filmed each one going through its paces in the show-ring. I think we were as proud as their owners were when the rosettes were handed out.

In addition to the glitz and glamour of the major ‘county’ shows, there are local shows and Breed Society events taking place throughout the summer months. The finished programme will show this aspect too, where everyone is encouraged to ‘have a go’ without the pressure of an audience of hundreds!



I don’t know whether it’s an age thing, but I’m certainly noticing things in the natural world more acutely these days! Perhaps it’s due to a combination of living in a very beautiful and quiet area, and working from home (meaning I rarely get to leave the farm!). I’ve become quite captivated with the doings of the local bird life, and though I’m no ‘twitcher’, I can be happily distracted from my computer to while away a bit of time watching, listening, and noting anything out of the ordinary. For example, the call of the Cuckoo on the last day in June – does this mean a second brood, or that the first brood failed? I’ve certainly never heard ‘cuckoo’ this late in the summer, but as they were so late in arriving here due to the cold spring, either scenario may be the case.

I’ve also enjoyed watching the progress of a couple of Collared Doves making their nest in the lambing shed (where they obviously found a good supply of feed) and rearing their pair of chicks. Today, they took flight and left their nest. One of the success stories of the bird world, these birds have spread across all of Europe from their original range in the Balkans in less than 40 years. I put it down to the utter devotion of the species, who I believe mate for life.

The Magpie on the other hand, despite its striking beauty, is a brute – I’ve watched them through the spring and summer hopping along the hedgerows plucking eggs and hatchlings from the nests of smaller birds.

So now, already into July and I’m fretting about getting the hay made! The early spring was so cold that even by early May our 7- acre hayfield looked more like it would in March, and by the middle of May I’d noticed the grass, barely 150mm tall, had started to ‘head’, meaning it had given up the idea of growing and decided that reproduction (flowering) was its best bet. Our only option was to ‘top’ the field, and by foiling its attempts to go to seed, persuade the grass to have another go at growing. A risky strategy, but one that, thankfully has paid off and the grass has grown back thick and tall – but, now I’m anxious to get it cut, baled and safely in the barn!