February 2015

Once the feed had run out by 6 February 158 of the lambs were sent to the works averaging 15.28kg carcass weight, lighter than we would have liked but the decision was made to “go deep” as there was no finishing feed left. Thankfully they were killable leaving us with only 70 lighter ones left and no one wanting to buy store lambs so we turned them out to the back of the farm for what little remained outside of the deer fenced area. All fawns have now been tagged and weighed. DNA profiling of the AI fawns has been carried out, samples sent away and we eagerly wait to see who our future stars may be. One stag fawn weighed 69kg on 6 February, significantly heavier than his peers. With one mob of hinds on fawns with nothing other silage and grain for two weeks a decision was made to wean them early to preserve hind condition. On the 14th February they were weaned at 46.64kg lightweight, considerably lighter than previous years but it was interesting to see they had still been growing at 250grams/day whilst on a feed pad situation. Our best mob of weaners still managed to grow at 371 grams/day while on Mum in February – on a paddock of stalky cocksfoot!. By the end of February the remaining three mobs of weaners had all been weaned as feed for the lactating hinds ran out. At least the weaners all had new Lucerne to go onto and settled quite quickly despite not having Mum anymore. February also saw up selling 4 2yr and 3 yrs old sire stags to our regular buyer and the sale of 60 of our lightest yearling hinds to the works. These averaged 49kg carcass weight which was similar to last year, but a month earlier due to the dry conditions so we were quite pleased under the circumstances.