Singles, Twins & Triplets

Arable

This month has also been fairly quiet on the arable side of the farm. We did have a couple of days mucking out our neighbours cattle courts. We also had a week taking out FYM at Lochty and North Baldutho. This is stockpiled in grass fields to decompose ready to be spread in the spring of 2020. We have spread some FYM on a wheat stubble field at Lochty, which will be sown with Spring Barley next spring. It has also been ploughed to let the frost/weather to break down the clay parts of the field, to get a better seed bed in the spring. We have had quite a few people on holiday this month, using up the last of their holiday entitlement before the end of the year.

 

Livestock

The 213 early lambing ewes have all been scanned on 27^th. They have been split up into different lots depending on the results. According to the scanning results there are 8 not in lamb, 25 singles 131 twins and 49 triplets, giving a scanning result of 204%. These ewes are due to start lambing on the 8^th of March. They are put inside 4 weeks before they are due to start, and then put back to the field once they have lambed, depending on weather conditions. We have also sold quite a few fat lambs this month (250). It has been an even split ½ to market and ½ straight to the slaughterhouse. The price has been holding up quite well for this time of year. We have also clipped and weighed all the weaned calves with an average weight of 310kg. These calves are also split up into lots, males, females, and then size. This prevents the smaller calves from getting bullied by the larger ones at the feed trough. With feeding and especially bedding usually taking until lunchtime to complete, it’s surprising how the days fly by.