7th Feb 2017

I am afraid that I never seem to get round to updating you on what is happening with the Culland Lleyn. Best will in the world… do you know the problem?

A quick summary of the autumn will be familiar to nearly everyone – stacks of grass but lamb growth rates way back on previous years. In addition, we Heptvac-P’d all of the lambs in the summer, and yet from late September through to mid December we had multiple cases of pneumonia. Although we managed to catch most early we still lost quite a few. Again, talking to other breeders across the country and our vets, we have all been subject to a particularly virulent strain this year. How much this has impacted lamb growth and how much has been grass quality is hard to tell. Interestingly, Wynnstay who analyse our haylage remarked that some of the best dairy farmers were reporting milk production down this autumn at least a ltr/day. Conversely, our haylage that I have just had analysed is some of the best I have made with protein, depending on field, between 12-15%.

Scanning was somewhat of a relief after the rather disappointing lamb growth rates. Although down at c. 1.83% (most years 1.92-1.94%), from a profitability point of view it wasn’t too bad, as our muliples were well down, and twins up. Result – less for fostering and using the orphanage. I was particularly pleased so far with the two new shearling rams that I bought this summer, one from George Cullimore (flock 1932) and the other from Humphrey Mills (1429) . Both covered around 90 and only had a couple barrens between them. These were shearlings themselves, so will go round again next year. (Rams do 2 cycles only). The older rams had a few of my oldest ewes, some born 2009, and it was here that most of my barrens were found. They have been culled. I still have about a dozen 2009 or 2010s who are still full mouthed and in cracking condition.

The ewes were all “barned” at the end of January and fluked. As always we barn by scanning results so that feeding in the last 4-6 weeks can be adjusted. We will Heptovac P as usual and bolus at the same time.