Diary

January 2015RSS feed

Sheep thoughts

Monday 5 January, 2015

by Rosemary Champion at 10:29am in Sheep 4 comments Comments closed

I suppose it's the time of year when we look backwards then forwards. I had a long list of things to do today as the first day "back at work", like booking a post movement TB test for our wee bull, ordering a headstone for Tess's grave and bringing my Flock Register up to date.

I was also taking time to have a good look at the ewes. We've 25 at home just now; two retirees, eight ewe hoggs and the eight ewes and seven gimmers that went to the tup in November. The scanner will be out this month sometime to scan them - just waiting for her to get back to me with a date and time. Taylor and Ted are up at Braeside.

Paperwork

Monday 5 January, 2015

by Rosemary Champion at 3:31pm in Smallholding 1 comment Comments closed

Although I was a professional papershuffler until five years ago, I get terribly anxious about the smallholding paperwork. As is my habit, I like to spend a day over the festive period clearing out files, getting filing up to date and having a general tidy-up of my desk and surrounding area.

This year, I found an unpaid bill from July - feck, I am mortified. Still, the firm hadn't chased it up and it's paid now.

Also found a letter from the British Cattle Movement Service, one from Animal Health and one from SGRPID that needed urgent attention so I've been sending a few emails today, mainly for clarification. I don't think there's anything that's going to result in me being in the pokey but with the new CAP, we'll be applying for the new Basic Payment Scheme so it seemed a good idea to get all in order.

The paperwork got worse

Friday 9 January, 2015

by Rosemary Champion at 12:44pm in Smallholding Comments closed

Aaaarrgh! In the previous post, I recounted finding some paperwork that required my attention, during a festive clear out / tidy up. I thought it would be simple. Ha.

We have some rented seasonal grazing about 4 miles away; in terms of animal movements, if certain conditions are met, you can get a concession to link these seasonal grazings to your own main holding and you don't have to then notify the authorities every time you move stock between them. I did this in February 2013. What I didn't notice was that, for cattle, you have to renew the linking very year - the link lasts for 364 days.

Clostridial disease in cattle

Friday 9 January, 2015

by Rosemary Champion at 2:52pm in Cattle Comments closed

I do love a day when I learn something new, even when I'd amazed that I didn't know it before.

I was reading the NADIS site two nights ago, as you do, and looking at the page about castrating bull calves - we don't do our lambs with rings (I *have* done it but it was years ago) and until now, I've got the vet to do the bull calves either with a Burdizzo or by cutting, when he comes to PD the cows. Some pretty horrid photos of castrations gone wrong and it was just before dinner, but I'm made of stern stuff.

Sunny and Rosie learn about halters

Tuesday 13 January, 2015

by Rosemary Champion at 12:21pm in Cattle 2 comments Comments closed

With the cows and heifer calves inside, it's time to halter train the heifer calves. I enjoy this - gives me an excuse to spend time with the cows :-)

I suppose the way I do it changes slightly every year, based on the calves and previous experience. First thing is to get them addicted to sugar beet. The cattle are naturally greedy, especially for anything swet - so that's not too hard. I tie up all the cows - always starting with the most dominant, Blizzard, then Breeze, Annie then Bonnie. If you tie up any BEFORE Blizzard, she'll take advantage and duff them up. I untie them in reverse order, but for the same reason.

Sheep scanning

Monday 19 January, 2015

by Rosemary Champion at 12:36pm in Sheep 1 comment Comments closed

We had the scanner here last week to scan the ewes. We've used the same lassie for seven years and she's never been wrong - and I'm hoping she's right this year too.

Of the fifteen to the tup - eight ewes and seven gimmers - all are in lambs. One gimmer is carrying a single and the other six have twins; of the eight ewes, we've got four sets of twins and four sets of triplets. So 33 lambs scanned or 220%. Gulp.

We had one set of twins last year from Poppy; she's expecting twins this year but her twin sister is expecting triplets (she had twins last year). Poppy's triplets were all much the same size and she did a good job of raising them all herself. I'd be lucky to get away with that thsi year, so I'll be buying milk powder and extra bottles, just in case. I might manage to twin one on to the single - never done that before either.

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