Farmer Focus: Longest wait for straw ever

I couldn’t wait for this lovely weather (5 September) and decided to wrap our first-cut hay a couple of weeks ago while waiting for the straw to dry. I’ve never had straw on the floor for 42 days before. 

Eventually, after a couple of false starts we managed to get it baled and are very grateful to the farmer for his patience.

See also: 8 steps for cleaner grazing to reduce worm burden

About the author

James and Belinda Kimber

Livestock Farmer Focus writers James and Belinda farm 850 commercial and pedigree sheep and 30 pedigree Simmental and Charolais cattle in Wiltshire across 95ha (45ha owned). James also runs a foottrimming business and Belinda has a B&B.

Read more articles by James and Belinda Kimber

The grass and cover crops are really liking the wet. The turnips especially look to be producing big bulbs – just as well, as we have most of the lambs still to market.

Unfortunately, we have continued to lose some lambs and have now tried most treatments. It is rather frustrating when three post-mortems by three vets with three lab results give you three different protocols. 

The last vet suggested a full Bristol University post-mortem on the next one that died.

They didn’t see the funny side of me asking for a brain scan as the next death had hung itself between the water pipe and trough.

Oh well, you’ve got to keep a sense of humour, especially when farming sheep.  I am lucky to have a few friends with similar sense of humour. 

The cows are now on restricted grazing and the lower quality haylage we have just made. With only five weeks to calving we need to control calf size.

EBVs are good, but we need to get the management right too.

In my last article, the plan was to sell 33% of the commercial ewes. Only when reading it did I realise how stupid some plans are: the commercial sheep have been making a profit.

Next plan is to sell the full-mouth ewes, which would have been drafted next year anyway. This leaves us with a young flock and the ewe lambs. Pedigree ewes and cattle will remain under review.

If any more grazing becomes available, we can then take it up without buying in any more sheep that could have problems. 

We’ve had a real shock locally. A young farmer tragically decided it was all too much for him. I’ve said in these pages before that it’s important to support each other. We are a small community under great pressure.