THIS week at Manor Farm, the three to six-month-old heifer calves received their lungworm vaccine. This is a live oral vaccine which needs to be repeated in one month. Two weeks after this second dose (weather permitting); the calves will be turned out onto clean pasture. This pasture will not have had older cows (who could be lungworm carriers but not affected themselves), grazing it for at least six months over the winter, which gives time for the lungworm larvae population to be depleted.

Ongoing tractor maintenance has also occurred as well as repairs to a pipe on a water tank.

James opened the silage clamp so that first cut silage could be mixed with second cut silage. This will occur over ten days to maintain consistency in the cow’s diet in terms of the energy and protein they are consuming. If there is a radical change in the nutrient composition of the silage and this is not managed, this could affect cow health and milk yield.

As we write, storm Doris is making her presence known! However, on Saturday, the conditions were calm and dry enough to enable Ian to spray the Blackgrass weed, which should lead to senescence (deterioration and death).

Ian also had an enquiry as to whether we could take on a work experience student for a few days in the summer. For this, we had to have a health and safety inspection and checks on our legal liability and insurance. It is really encouraging to have young people interested in working in the agricultural sector as there is a real diversity of job opportunities available, from accountancy to agronomy, contract spraying to calf-rearing. We hope that the student we take on will get an enjoyable, informative and hands-on experience.

While on Stowell Farm this week, lambing is now well under way, with the Signet-recorded flock of 110 ewes having their lambs. We are trying a new bedding in the individual pens this year of bedmax which is pine wood shaving. These are used instead of straw as they have an antiseptic property and they help the beds remain drier, straw stays damp and therefore harbours bacteria which can lead to illness in the lambs, mainly watery mouth, (also known as rattle belly, watery mouth is a bacterial infection caused by the bacteria E. Coli which occurs in lambs and in sheep). It also means that when a ewe and her lambs go out to the field, before the next ones go into the pen all you need to do is put a sprinkle of lime powder and some more wood shavings on top instead of having to clean the pen out to the floor every time. This will hopefully save on time and labour during this very busy period.

Our Signet-recorded flock are the ewes which we artificially inseminate to bring in new genetics without having to buy in rams, therefore reducing the risk of introducing disease. All the lambs, male and females, are tagged with individual identification numbers and then they are scanned and a record of their mother and father is recorded for each one. The information such as ease of lambing, their mother and father and the number of lambs born/ewe and birth weight are then sent to Signet. This is then put on a database so that it can be viewed online or people wishing to buy your stock can check the estimated breeding values (EBVs) for your produce. Recording the information with Signet adds value to your stock and promotes genetics so improve the flock. We record EBVs to identify rams within each breed, ours being Llyen’s, with superior breeding potential.

The first lot have lambs have been put out in the field with biodegradable jackets on as the weather is rather unpredictable, this gives the lambs protection while they become used to being outside.