ALAN WEST SHEEP TOPICS
WHAT AN
INTERESTING
YEAR?
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As 2021 ends it will, for many, be a time of introspection; I am sure that many sheep ALAN WEST producers will be looking back over the Sheep farmer past 12 months with a tinge of satisfaction, perhaps even smugness. In December 2020 everything was still very much in the air, our imminent departure from the EU, compounded by Covid-19 regulations, providing a “cliffhanger” end to the year, with uncertainty casting a bit of a cloud over New Year celebrations. Things could have gone either way for the sheep sector; it could easily have been an absolute disaster, but with tight supplies both internally and globally and relatively strong domestic demand, markets took off in spite of a significant fall in the amount of lamb crossing the Channel to our erstwhile European partners. Fortunately the divorce was not as acrimonious as it might have been, although the full settlement has not yet been finalised. Weather wise, this year rather broke the trend of summer droughts, at least in the South East. A period of five weeks with just a couple of millimetres of rain in late March and April caused a bit of consternation but proved to be no more than a brief hiatus, with the rains reappearing as we moved into May. Overall as a grass growing season, 2021 excelled itself; it really is a long time since I can recall having so much summer grass, I won’t say too much, but certainly on occasions a bit of an embarrassment. The sheep have not gone short of grazing this year. I know that at times I’ve done everything that we are constantly told not to do: not keeping on top of grass growth, turning ewes and lambs into paddocks where the grass is far too long, grazing grass that is too mature, the list goes on, but the outcome does lead me to question some of the current recommendations. Both ewes and lambs have done remarkably well. The ewes have gone to the tup in good condition, some even pushing the boundaries a little at the upper end of optimum BCS, and the lambs are growing on well and look good. I must admit that with plenty of grass available, I have not pushed them to clear up but have moved them around paddocks fairly readily, quite happy for them to eat the bottom out and then tidy up behind with the topper. It’s an approach that has seemed to work. The strategic use of molasses blocks has, I suspect, helped this process or at least helped rumen function. Providing a little extra fuel for micro flora and fauna that make up
WINTER GRAZING FOR EWES AND LAMBS WANTED Grass, forage or cover crops.
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the rumen micro-biome enables them to work more effectively and make much better and more efficient use of available grass and forages, much of which had unquestionably passed its optimum feed value. I have always been an advocate of looking after the inner animal; feed the rumen and let the rumen feed the sheep. The residues left after grazing and topping off have also provided an unintentional but welcome bonus in helping to put what I guess will be a significant quantity of organic matter into the soil over the summer period. Any additional organic matter should leave the soil in better condition and provide added resilience to drought in subsequent years. The rather wet and warm summer has not been without its down sides; plenty of hay has been made, but hay-making has been snatchy, to say the least, and although there may be abundant quantity, the wet weather and rather mature grass has resulted in quite a substantial knock to quality. I’m sure that there will be plenty of hay available this coming winter, but good hay will be more difficult to find. The long grass and warm, wet weather has also generated a few problems for sheep, most notably a significant increase in the incidence of foot problems. Fortunately this has largely been due to scald which, if spotted and treated in a timely manner, is relatively easy to deal with; the footbath has certainly had more than its usual level of use over this summer. The real bonus to most sheep producers this year has, however, been prices, which in general have been good across the board (except wool, but this is steadily, if slowly, improving); lamb prices have been buoyant throughout the season, a few ups and downs but it will always be thus. Trade in breeding ewes has been very good, particularly for anything with a bit of quality, and the ram trade has been not good but OK - it could have been much worse. Rams have sold reasonably well and, again, for anything with a bit of quality, at a sensible, if not a good, price. It is a strange phenomenon that, frequently, if there is a strong trade in breeding females then the ram trade is proportionally not quite so good. As a result ram sellers have generally not seen the premium prices that have been made at some of the female sales. It seems counter-intuitive to me that if one has paid good money for some good ewe tegs one should then try to save a bit by buying a cheaper ram. Good ewes merit good rams; cheap rams will not generally produce the quality of lambs that they deserve. We had a very slow start to our ram sales but by the end of the season could have sold rather more than we had available and all at sensible prices. The store lamb trade has also been surprisingly good; on occasions strong stores have even made more than finished lambs, possibly as a result of
