The good been, that growth rates have been exceptional; the bad however was awful with ground conditions appalling at times. Friday and Saturday night we seen large quantities of rain fall and this left one paddock looking like the Battle of the Somme on Saturday morning. However it was only superficial and things always look worse in the wet conditions!

Thankfully no permanent harm was done and it is greening up nicely. Due to our farm being so fragmented there is no hope of heading back to the shed with any animals so we just have to be resilient in our grazing management and so far it’s paying off. We have some covers of 800-900 kg/dm ha in paddocks that were grazed three weeks ago and paddocks are looking really good for this time of the year. I am pleased with how the cattle are performing so far and even though the weather hasn’t been too kind, they are all very settled.

I released some cattle from the shed today and have them in a few small bunches. These will all be grouped up into bigger groups when the weather improves. It was a case of wanting to empty the shed and get animals out and thriving.

Lambing is nearing the end, with only five ewe lambs left to lamb and they certainly are dragging on. Lambing went reasonably good this year with a good crop of lambs. Ewes went to the fields with approx 1.7 lambs per ewe. All ewe lambs are only rearing one lamb each but receive no extra feed as I find that if they are strong enough (60kgs plus) at lambing there should be no issues with excess body condition loss or lack of milk.

One problem I have had this year at lambing that I never had before is joint-ill. I can’t say it was a hygiene issue as I would be very particular in this department. In the last week I even had three week old lambs outside that have been fine up until and are now giving problems. I am currently treating them with Noroclav but it is a real pain catching and treating lambs that I thought I would need to worry about. I have spoken to different people but everyone has a different answer as one farmer commented when something gets into a lambing or calving shed it can be very different to get rid of and this seems to be the case in my lambing shed.