Farmer Focus: I committed the stockman’s cardinal sin
James Kimber © Kathy Horniblow In a minute the sheep farmers will be screaming “No! Why did you say it?”
At the beginning of September, I committed the utmost stupidity as a shepherd. I said to my other half, Belinda: “We haven’t lost anything for a while.”
Sheep seem to have a telepathic power. I say this because, 48 hours later, the best ram lamb had choked on a neighbour’s damson.
See also: Post-mortem stats reveal high ‘Texel throat’ risk in rams
About the author
As soon as the fallen stock chap had collected it, a gimmer started with Texel throat (laryngeal chondritis), showing the usual breathing problems. She was stiff the next morning.
Not to be outdone, a ewe lamb joined in two days later. She had simply decided to lie in the middle of the field.
Meanwhile, the most horrible cull ewe (it’s so embarrassing to look at), I have hidden around the back of the farm out of sight. Sod’s law dictates it will live happily for years.
This article was a day late for the paper (again) as we were flooded quite badly on Monday 24 September.
We had missed rain that everyone else got in late August and early September, and the farm was becoming quite dry again.
Most paddocks had dry, rusty grass and actually needed plenty of rain. We just didn’t need it in one massive dump.
Fortunately, the water drained away the following morning, leaving just a bit of a mess.
Luckily, we had harvested the maize the day before.
We probably got it a week early, but on balance, it’s good to see it in the clamp after we were able to harvest it with good ground conditions. As I write, the short-term forecast looks wet.
We put 10ha (24 acres) of maize in this spring. It yielded just under 600t, but probably only 28% dry matter (DM), due to the early harvest – that is 16.8 tonnes DM/ha.
It was only in the ground for 16 weeks and had had no chemical fertiliser, which is a pretty impressive performance I’d say.
Lastly, I hope the cows can go back outside on drier land before winter housing starts. Even going out for a couple of weeks would help our straw situation.