Hello again! Its been a busy few months but I've finally made myself sit down and update you on a few things!
There is no doubt that summer is finally here! We got lucky with most of our shearing jobs, avoiding the hottest days and only postponing one job due to rain!
But now, the heat doesn't seem to be letting up. The grass is burning off, the sheep are annoyed, and there's the constant worry that the heat brings a consistent supply of flies. So far, we have only had a handful of fly strike cases but its always in the back of our minds. For the most part, we're praying it doesn't affect any of the ewe lambs we've ear marked to take to the pedigree sales. Fingers crossed!
Considering how little the ladies have to eat at the moment, they're all looking remarkably well.
Part of our consideration when choosing to invest in a flock of Northies was how well they do on poorer ground and at the moment they are excelling. They have also done the lambs incredibly well. We weaned on 26th June, and ran a few lambs through the scales. Our biggest lamb, a March born wether, topped the scales at 47kg! He was our biggest lamb born in the early hours of a dreary day and it did take both of us to get him out. He also makes us question our decision to put a ring on him, but you cant keep everything entire! Several other lambs were above 40kg, with a nice proportion averaging at 35kg.
We have finally made some head way with our last handful of girls left to calve. Big Mrs South Devon had a lovely bull calf, all by herself. What treat to find him in the field, up on his feet and following mum around! One more South Devon to go. However, the biggest success was with our Blue girl, the heifer purchased back in December. We had originally been given a due date for her of late May. Well, May came and went and we headed into June. We made the decision to have her felt by the vet again to clarify that she hadn't slipped her calf. Nope, definitely still in calf, and she felt like the calf was ready. However, dating later calves can be tricky. At 2 stages in pregnancy, the calf drops down towards their belly and it makes it a lot more difficult to accurately guess an age. This happens at both 4-6 months and around 8 months, but the vet felt she was much further along then 6 months. So we waited, and stayed patient. June trickled past and here we are in July with a creeping feeling that maybe she had slipped the calf in December and had taken again to Jaggy, meaning when the vet felt her, she was actually more likely 6 months along.
Keeping a close eye, we could never decide if she was starting to bag up or was just stood funny. But finally, after all that waiting, she started to calve on 12th July! After the bad run we had with our earlier block of calving, we were sure she was going to have problems. Knowing our luck, a breech calf or one too big to come out. But no! The girl did us super proud and had a lovely, textbook calving, and delivered a very healthy heifer all by herself! When it goes right, it really is a pleasure to sit and watch! Good job Bluey!
Harvest will begin this weekend along with the usual lunch runs to the field and rides out on the tractor. The work really doesn't seem to let up at any point in the year! Gary was fortunate to have help with the silage and hay making this year, taking the pressure off him somewhat. Neil will be joining him again this year with the combine and we just have to lock my brother down for straw baling so Gary can focus on the carting.
As always, time is running away with us and fairly soon we will be thinking about tupping again! Our plan this year is to introduce a texel tup for a flock of commercial lambs, for any poor performing pedigree ladies. Whilst that suggests the pedigree lambs haven't done well, most of them have done beautifully, and the introduction of the texel is purely focused towards the best possible butchers lamb we can produce, as this aspect is the majority of our income. This also gives us more freedom to keep our own homebred ewe lambs into the breeding flock, without the worry of having to change Northie tups every couple of years, if we chose to. We're always striving for the best!
Well, I don't think I've covered half of what has gone on in the last few months, so ill be back soon to fill you in on the rest!
Stay cool and hydrated,
Zoe x
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