In a blink, summer seems to be over and our thoughts focus solely on winter and all the fun it brings! Seriously, yesterday I was wearing shorts and t shirt and this morning I'm donning a turtle neck and thick socks.
So the first thing to tackle is tupping! The period after harvest and before putting the rams in feels like a bit of limbo where everything is still busy busy, but you never feel like you're actually getting a lot done. So tupping time feels like a jump into the winter routine and a big push along in our calendar!
We have a new addition to the team this year in the form of a shearling Dutch Texel tup named Evan! He comes from just a stones throw away, and whilst we wont ever go down the route of a pedigree Texel flock, our aim is that his addition will create a batch of high quality lambs aimed directly at the butchery side of our business.
Of course, we love our chevs, and have no plans to get rid or replace them, but consistent quality is what we strive for. We recently put a batch of finished lambs into the market who were very well received. Pedigree cheviots are not seen in this part of the country! So we see Evans arrival as adding another string to our bow, as opposed to a change.
He might not be the best looking boy in the world, but with him its the back end that counts, and we certainly like the look of that!
Bob and Boss will of course also have their own flock of ladies to keep them occupied, including the addition of 3 Dutch Texel ewes.... Oops! I mean when in Rome I guess?!
Not only did we purchase the texels, but we also recently took a trip back to Monmouth for the pedigree cheviot sale, with 7 of our own girls in tow! We had some help from the fantastic Benn Lugsden (who does our scanning for us in the winter) to prep the girls and get them looking in tip top condition. We were so pleased with how they were presented. Unfortunatley, it was a tough market. Some sheep were going for ridiculously low prices. Whilst thats great for those of us buying, its not ideal for those selling. We were there to do both, so knew that the money we made on our ewe lambs wouldn't go far for buying more shearlings.
Our top pen was a lovely pair of twins who's grandfather was Muirton Welcome. We have a number of sheep from the breeder of their mother and were actually quite prepared to take them 2 home and add to our flock should they not fetch a decent price. We were very chuffed to find out they had been purchased by their mothers breeder! Back to the farm in Wales they go! Their buyers are well renowned cheviot breeders so that makes us really proud that they liked what we had produced.
Ultimately, all sold bar 2 lambs, who we decided to give the benefit of the doubt to and add to our breeders anyway. We liked them enough to sell them pedigree, so why not just keep and add to the flock!
Along with our 2 ewe lambs, we also bought home 13 shearlings. By now, we have an idea of breeders we like to obtain our ewes from - some we can afford, others we cant! But where possible, we do also like to introduce new stock lines to the flock. We purchased a pair of girls from the Crughaf Flock (new to us) as well as some more from Muddy Plox, WJ and of course Pen Y Bont! We cannot resist trying to obtain Pen Y Bont ewes, and the Muddy Plox girls introduce the line of Smerlie Archie, as tup purchased out of Lockerbie for 6500gns.
They all travelled back remarkably well, with just enough time to settle in for around 6 weeks before we introduce the boys! We have made the decision to put the boys in 2 weeks later than last year. We hope this will tighten up our lambing block (based on when the majority of the girls cycled last year) and gives us a little more time in the new year before lambing after another big arrival....
It was been quite a while since I did a blog update, so Tupping Time Already?! (Part 2) will follow along very shortly and bring us around to November 2022!
One other thing to mention is that we are now iLivestock Brand Ambassadors! If you follow us on social media, you will know this is an app that we began using last year to keep track of the girls and their breeding. We were very pleased to be asked to fly the flag for the company as we are genuinely avid users of the app! Head to our instagram to see some videos on how we use the app to our advantage, but also be aware that you can obtain 20% off a years subscription or an eWeigh with our personal discount code "galivestock". Feel free to message us if you have any questions, but the iLivestock team are fantastic at answering queries or questions AND you can trial the app for a full month before buying! Be sure to check it out!
Stay safe and get ready for the clocks to change!
Zoe xx
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