Lambing has been progressing well to date. The ewes that were artificially inseminated (AI) for Sheep Ireland started lambing down a few days earlier than I had been expecting but, fortunately, we had everything in place before things really heated up on the farm.

Often, during the lambing, you feel like you’re going round in circles getting nowhere fast. On checking my phone one evening, I noticed on the pedometer app, I had walked the equivalent of 24km around the yard that day. There is definitely no need to go to the gym with that sort of distance covered daily. We clocked approximately 100 ewes lambing per day during the peak days. This kept us on our toes. I have started training my own children this year. Both Mia and Drew were thrilled to pull their first lambs. Hopefully this enthusiasm will continue as they get older.

As I write this, the ewes are being patriotic and not lambing down too hard for St Patrick’s Day. This little breather is giving me a chance to clean out and disinfect the sheds before I refill them with the next batch of ewes that are due to lamb.

The first ewes that have lambed have been let out in fields to build to a stocking rate of 13 ewes/ha. I will start merging these small groups together over the next few weeks until I reach the target number for each grazing group for the main grazing season.

This is done on a gradual basis, so as to minimise any chance of smothering during this time. I usually open a gate early in the morning and let the ewes and lambs walk out at their own pace, returning later in the day to close the gate. Getting this done as soon as possible will help in setting up the farm to produce the optimum amount of grass.

As I mentioned, lambing has gone relatively well with what seems like a reduction in ewe mortality from other years. Listeriosis has been a problem here in previous years, but the use of silage additive in last year’s silage has had a major effect in reducing the instance of mould in silage to that of being negligible, resulting in no cases being experienced this year.

The one problem which still remains is that of prolapse in all its ugly forms. It is probably a result of high litter sizes, housed ewes and ewes being in better condition than previous years.

You want your ewes in optimum condition so as to produce the best lambs possible but, in doing so, are we shooting ourselves in the foot by perhaps causing these problems? I would love to know the answer. Thankfully, most cases of prolapse have been straightforward but I would prefer not to have any.