Is The Grass Greener with Sainsbury's?

On Thursday the 19th May we hosted the Sainsbury's Lamb Steering Group Meeting at Overbury.  The group started about a year ago and this was the first on-farm meeting which was a real pleasure to host.  There were about 9 others farmers from all corners of the UK and even Northern Ireland, all farming different systems and producing lamb in different ways, all dedicated to supplying Sainsbury's.  In addition there were people from Randall Parker Foods and Dunbia who are the processors for the producers lamb (We supply RPF- via the Mayhill Lamb Group).  The day started with an update on JS lamb sales over the past year, then we moved onto an update of the Carbon Footprint assessment.  This is the largest study ever conducted assessing the carbon involved with producing lamb.  More about that another day.  After that I did a presentation about Overbury Farms, what we do, how we do it and why.  I talked about our crops, conservation, staff, machinery and then our sheep.

Following on from me was Bob Bevan from AB Sustain who was teaching us about grassland management. 

One of the interesting things learnt from the JS Dairy Group was the attention to detail of grassland management and how carbon emissions and therefore cost can be reduced by better grassland management.  This conversation carried on over a working lunch before heading out to the field for a tractor and trailer ride around the farm.  We looked at 8 fields in total, starting with a hay field, then a silage fields then various permanent pasture fields ending up on the top of Bredon Hill, where Alice and Annie had their photograph taken as shown here!

 

It was a really good meeting, I felt that a lot had been achieved and there was plenty of conversation within the group.  There is a definite opportunity to explore the grassland management here at Overbury, starting this summer with some over-seeding in a couple of fields.

Following the meeting we did a short bit of filming for the JS website all about the Carbon Footprinting and how we are benefiting by working together.  That should be on the website under the Coorporate Responsibility tab on the 7th June.

Watering The Onions

With all of this dry weather we have been asked to start watering the onions. The northerly winds have really dried out the land very quickly, going from muddy wet conditions at the end of March to bone dry conditions in about 3 weeks. These onions were planted about 2 weeks ago and are being watered for the second time already. This watering will help the small seeds to germinate very quickly and there is no real rain on the horizon for at least a week! They are due to be harvested in August. We could really do with some rain, gentle warm rain that is, very soon to help wash in some recently applied fertiliser on the spring barley and to get the grass growing again. The cold nights have also slowed up the grass growth with is not great for the ewes providing milk for the hungry lambs.

Spring Planting Apace

With the recent dry weather, yes it's been dry for at least 2 weeks, last time that happened was in 2003, or so it seems, the land has been dry enough to travel on. Gordon here > is drilling Tipple Spring Malting Barley on Bredon Hill. This is under contact to Coors, via Frontier Agriculture, to go to Burton-on-Trent to be made into Carling lager next year. The dry weather following the frost has given us lots of frost tilth and the seed bed is nice and fine. We put some nitrogen fertiliser into the seed bed before we cultivated it so that it was worked into the soil to surround the seedlings as they germinate to hopefully get them off to a really good start. Gordon is hoping to finish the field tonight before it rains, tomorrow.

On the 11th April we are having our annual Farm Lambing Day. Tractors and trailers will be leaving Overbury village hall, from 10am until 3pm, to take you up to Park Farm to see the lambing for yourselves. The game keeping dept, of Paul, Greg and Rod will also be there to uncover a few of the myths behind the dark and shady underground world of game keeping, accompanied by the stuffed or frozen usual suspects, friends or foe! Lunch will be available to purchase at the village hall from 12 am until 2pm, tea and coffee will be available all day. There is a small charge of only £5 for adults and children will travel free. It is a really super day out for all of the family, so bring them along, no matter what the weather is doing, and we'll be pleased to show you all about the lambing and sheep production here at Overbury. It got very busy last year between 11 and 1, so if you can try and get there early.

First One's Out

At last spring must be nearly here. we started lambing on the 9th on February, in the middle of the snow period and had to keep the lambs and ewes inside for 10 days before they could be turned

out into much sunnier weather. These lambs are down in Conderton and will soon be moved up into the plum orchard, when the grass starts to grow a little. If you want a closer first hand experience of lambing sheep our Farm Lambing Day is on the 11th April this year. Tractors and trailers will be departing from Overbury Village Hall from 10 am until 3pm to take you to the sheep pens.

Field Surfing an Organic Alternative?

This is Derek this morning topping out the yellow flowered Charlock in the field growing stubble turnips and forage rape for the lambs to feed on over the winter. Charlock is a real pain as it belongs to the same family 'brassica' as the actual crop so we can not spray it out. We weed surfer is like a flymo that is carried along behind the tractor trimming of the flowering heads and some of the pods that have already been set. The trick is to get the surfer low enough to cut the charlock but not to low as to damage the actual crop. Some of the outer leaves will be chopped a little but they will recover after the rain we have just had and the warm soil temperatures. The lambs will be running out of grass during October and so they will need to be grazing the turnips in November and hopefully they should last the lambs until March. Anybody know how many grazing days an acre of turnips should last?

Movement at Last

It was a bleary eyed Farm Manager and Shepherd who loaded the first lambs into the sheep trailer at 4.15 this morning. The lambs where the first ones

to be moved after the livestock restrictions had been lifted on Sunday. We can now move lambs directly from the farm to the abattoir. These 44 lambs were destined for Randall Parker Foods in Llanidloes in Powys. They will be on Sainsbury's shelves by the weekend marketed under the 'Cotswold Lamb' label. The trip took about 3 hours and was 109 miles. The sunrise was fantastic so I thought I would share it with you all as you were all still in bed! (Not that I am jealous at all)

Foot and Mouth Disease

Well it's happened again only this time at a very important time for many livestock producers. Over the next month thousands of breeding sheep are due to be sold at auction all over the country. These sheep are born in April and spend the summer grazing the high moor areas of the UK before being brought off the fells and mountains and sold to 'lowland' sheep breeders (like us). These sheep are the main income for many hundreds of hill farmers and go to breed lamb the following year. Cattle farmers will also be weaning spring born calves at this time and they will usually be sold on to other farms for the winter. At the moment there is a complete shutdown on all movements of 'cloven hoofed' animals.

How does this affect us? We can't sell any lamb at the moment, lambs can't be taken to the abattoir and no sheep can be moved across any roads. We can't move the ewes to the stud, where they eat the grass for Simon. This works well for both of us in a normal year. The ewes chew down all the grass that the fussy horses leave. It also gets the ewes in good health ready to be mated. Will we have fewer lambs next lambing? Who knows watch this space.

Did the Government lift the restrictions too early? I didn't realise this but symptoms show in animals after 14 days but the virus can live in the soil, water and forage for up to 50 days!

New Arrivals

Born yesterday at Park Farm Overbury were the first lambs of the season. Triplets from a mule (Swaledale cross Blue faced Leicester)ewe to a Texel sire. The females will be retained and will move into our breeding flock whereas the males will enter the food chain in about 3 months. These guys will stay in at the farm for couple of days so that they can build up strength and make sure mum can provide all of the colostrum and milk required to ward off the cold nights ahead. We like to turn them out into the fields as soon as possible after the lambs are born where disease levels are much less, although close watching of the weather forecasts will determine exactly when that is, at this time of the year.

First try out in the pool at the weekend after some physiotherapy on a dodgy shoulder, no side effects yet! I need to be swimming 3 times a week. Week one the target is 2.9km each time, seems a bit excessive as I have to swim 5km in total. Still I suppose this chap Duncan Goodhew should know what he's on about!

Wet and Wild!

What an end to the year, wet and wild, no not another instalment from America but the weather. It was a strange year with 693mm of rain. Monthly variances ranged from 6.6mm (Jan) and 118mm (May and most of that came in 4 days!) The total was about average but the variation in monthly totals was bizzar! The wettest year since 1990 was in 2000 with 873mm and the driest was in 1996 when 458mm fell, so we were about average in 2006.

These are some of the lambs being fed outdoors between Christmas and New Year, just after a very wet night! They are not happy but putting down some straw put a spring back in their steps. The turnips are running out and as a result we have taken 350 lambs to rear indoors on purchased feed, to ease the pressure of the home grown forage. They should start to be ready to sell from early January onwards.

It's time for a New Years Resolution I guess and it would have to be to remain calm whilst talking to the DEFRA helpline (LOL), about, well anything really! Those of you who have experienced this phenomena will know that the chances of keeping this resolution are, to say the least slim and....I know it's not the person on the end of the telephone's fault, and I know the help books are written backwards, inside out and cross referenced beyond belief, and I also know that the computer always says NO! But lets be optimistic at least until the end of the month!