March arrived with cold but dry weather spells which has not encouraged the much-needed grass growth especially towards the end when the temperatures soared into record heights for this month. This has meant lots of travelling around fields to top up expectant ewes with up to twice daily oats (dependant on how much grass the field has) to keep up their condition.
Early February we were busy dagging some of our ewes in readiness for lambing and we started lambing our first 250 ewes around the middle of March. Dagging is clipping the wool off bottoms and around the udder area to ensure that they have clean bottoms when lambing and less likelihood to transfer any disease during lambing, the udder area is also clipped to help the lamb get to the teats more easily to feed off their mothers.
Mothering Sunday was a lovely bright and warm day, and we were blessed with many lambs, the lucky ewes were able to celebrate this special mothering day with us all, as was pointed out by Sophia our daughter.
With lambing well under way, the silly season started with regular checks to all the lambing fields. We also had to get on with dagging the remainder of our expectant ewes, all in all with the help of the lovely Marie Prebble from Kent Shepherd, Auntie Ginny, Paul and myself we managed to dag over 1,000 ewes in total over the month, all due around the 1st April and onwards.
Our cows have also had lots of babies during March with around 30 little calves being born. The fat cattle are still going off to market although the price is not overly exciting, the variation of supply and demand can throw a spanner in the works of budgeting. One can take comfort from the fact that the sheep prices are good the moment and although we don’t have a massive quantity to sell in the spring what we are selling is certainly softening the blow. There are plus sides to having a mixed farm and not having all your eggs in one basket.
The arable side of things has also started to move on as fields have been cultivated and we have been busy sewing beans, spring wheat and spring barley. We have also fertilized our winter crops (oats, wheat, and Oil Seed Rape) to give it a kick start with nourishment and nutrition to encourage growth, all we need now is a little rain to bring it all along.