Trying to make farming sheep fun
As you know, my life is largely governed by the seasons, however topsy-turvy they might be. And hence
I’ve spent the better part of a day preparing the sheep dip in the lashing rain and gales last weekend.
See, with autumn pretty much here, so it’s time to give the sheep their annual bath. To prevent my little woolly jumpers getting all itchy, and potentially a bit ‘dead by February’, they’ve all got to do five laps of a round tub, filled with potent anti-insect soup.
Some of my chums prefer a fangled injection, but I don’t trust myself to ensure every single sheep gets the full dose – in my experience, the self-filling injection gun inevitably fails at some point. And if it fails during this particular operation, how would I know how many didn’t get the full shot? And how will that effect rising drug resistance?
No, seeing as I’m using that particular drug group for worming cattle already, the last thing I want to do is overuse it on the sheep. Anyway, I prefer the simplicity of dunking them in the dip, knowing that once dipped, they’ll stay parasite clear for several weeks.
The bigger problem this year is the long, dry spell, which had baked the poop splattered about the draining pen on to the concrete in a fashion paint manufacturers could only dream off. And the dip pen has to be clean, as every bit of muck that washes back into the tub lowers the function of the dip chemical. So I had to wait until nature gave it a good soaking, then set to with a stiff brush. Wanting to get started Monday morning, Saturday was the day, in that storm. Oh but that was a joy.
Still, we’ve now dipped most of the in-bye ewes, two thirds of the ewe lambs, and the tups. Everything handled to date is already fluked and bolused – for a liver parasite and trace element deficiency respectively.
We’re breaking new ground this year, and bolusing the ewe lambs. We watched this summer, as the replacement blackface hogs on one flock went to bits.
The group are restricted to 150 acres of rough for most of the year, stocked at one ewe to three acres – supported by 12 acres of inbye at tupping and lambing.
With a mouthful of hay through the worst of the winter weather, and some cake or blocks at lambing if the season dictates, they wean most of a lamb apiece, and yield some draft ewes each year.
A retained ram lamb or two leaves tupping cost at nil. So after labour, interest on investment, a bit of rent, and a few quid in the fencing pot, they are generally leaving me with just £2-3 per ewe. This year they haven’t, but that has been due to difficult circumstances.
The occasional fly in the management ointment is the hogs melting some years, and I’m pretty sure it has to be a cobalt issue. So we’re bolusing the ewe lambs to see if we can fix it. Us’ll see.
I hope we’ve got it right, as they weaned 26 ewe lambs this time, meaning we’ll potentially have a surplus next year, either of young ewes to sell, or extra drafts to lower the flock age.
I did have surplus cheviot two tooths this autumn which, even in a slow trade, found homes, as did a good crop of draft cheviot ewes. Meanwhile the Scotch drafts weren’t exactly a very sparkling trade, so we held off with a couple of batches, thinking we’ll try and find somewhere to tup and winter them.
This will bring its own problems, as the off ground where we winter cheviot ewes isn’t really suited to horn-headed sheep. I could winter them on some rough, but keeping older sheep up there is a high-risk strategy – indeed, why do you think we draft middle age sheep out of the hill flocks?
And after the fiasco with the self-eliminating and infertile Blue Face Leicester rams last year, there’s talk of just tupping them with a couple of spare cheviot rams, as the boy and I are both very partial to ewes from that cross.
An added benefit would be that the lambs would be a little bit livelier on their toes if next spring comes in rough.
I’m not sure yet… there’s Blues left unsold in the parish, and our previous foray into mule breeding had proved fun. I daresay the decision will be made over a bottle one night with one or two of the usual suspects.
And if there’s one thing for sure, it’s that there isn’t enough money in farming to do it if you can’t have a bit of fun along the way.
The occasional fly in the management ointment is the hogs melting some years, and I’m pretty sure it has to be a cobalt issue. So we’re bolusing the ewe lambs to see if we can fix it. Us’ll see.