With only five inches of rain for September and October combined, coming in a fine warm spell, stock have fairly flourished in the autumn compared to a stagnant summer.

There has been a good flush of grass in front of them and no days lost to standing with their backs up against the cold, beating rain of last autumn.

They missed the sun on their backs through the summer though – and although cows and ewes are in better form than I’ve seen them, calves and lambs are about the same stage as last year.

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Yearling grazed cattle are the ones that have taken a hit – and steers which normally have finished on grass have spent what has turned out to be the pick of the weather indoors, eating a silage and barley mix. With ‘up horn’ and ‘down corn’, it is turning into no great set back.

The results so far are one month behind, a few kilos heavier and up about £150 on the year. They are leaving a hole in the barley pile and have eaten some of the good silage bales – so although we’ve got out of this quite well, I think the learning outcome is to try to graze them better in the future and avoid re-housing if possible.

Lamb sales are at a similar place to last year in terms of numbers finished. There does look more tail enders – mostly a symptom of the hungry spring with mastitis stunting lambs, but mostly doing well. Next draw will see the smaller end shed onto a mediocre looking forage rape crop which should see them out now. Price wise, they are up £10 on the year.

Despite the warm weather, we have slowly been working away at weaning calves, under the premise that when it does start to rain, we don’t want them all still out. We rely on some recovered cow grass to tup ewes in any case.

About two thirds of calves are now weaned, housed, heads and backs clipped, pneumonia vaccine and wormed. Mothers are shut in presently and will get a herd test for Johnes and TB done before most of the Luing cows return out for the winter.

The boys opened the silage pit yesterday which took a lot of damage from a fire over the top of it through the summer. Re-sealing has been a problem and waste on the top was expected. However, less than a foot down it looks good and there is a pleasant nose – none of that peatiness or smoke of the island malts!

Texel tups are out with the pure ewes and painting bums with enthusiasm. We are using a two-shear that bred well last year; a son of his which came out of the CT scanner with exceptional data; and a new shearling bought privately. He is quite differently bred, comes from a flock that doesn’t do any ET or AI work so has a pedigree full of ewes that have the benefit of some good old ‘mother-nature/father-time’ selection. He starts off with some top performance figures – and he’s got a bit of presence and alertness about him. We now just have to wait and see!

Lleyn ewes have been on maintenance rations for a while now, and have just moved onto some stockpiled old grass on the run up to tupping. My dark evenings are taken up sorting ewes on figures. EBVs highlight the ewes that can ‘talk the talk’, and I sort through them with our in-house records to make sure our stud ewes can ‘walk the walk’ too!

We have picked a group of ram lambs to use across the flock again. ‘Speed of genetic gain’ has to be tempered with ‘knowing you are heading in the right direction’, so we think using ram lambs out of old ewes that have stood the test of time is a good balance.

We are looking for rams that have scanned with a decent fat cover over good muscling, have a low worm egg count under challenge, have a long history of twinning and good mothering – and have good structure, hair cover, colours and alertness.

I’ve always thought that the most important thing about judging a sheep – is to make sure that it’s not dead yet – and the further away from it the better. The main ‘tells’ that you can pick for are: teeth – it’s got to be able to graze to stay in good condition; feet – it’s got to be walking to find the best grass; and finally, ‘the will to live’ – and that’s why character and alertness are so important to shepherds.

Debbie is the player on our team who knows what PSF stands for – and she reports that she has just completed the Preparing for Sustainable Farming online form. She ticked the soil analysis box which requires us to have an up-to-date carbon audit (funding still available if you need one), and will cover our full cost of soil testing last spring at £1200.

Under the Animal Health and Welfare Interventions box, she claimed for liver fluke investigation in cattle (we did some dung counts last January which came up negative and saved a treatment), and bull fertility testing (we did some stock bulls and all sale bulls, so there is enough evidence to fill a teacup to the brim). That’s £500 towards the vet bill – which more than covers the required health planning.

This has fired her up to fill in the Scottish Beef Calf scheme form on another of these dark evenings. No Single Farm Payment yet – the portal says ‘under action/assessment’ – and quite a few neighbours in the same position.

The children both returned from university recently for ‘reading week’, which is positioned in the curriculum calander in the ideal position to bring home the maximum amount of washing, an infection of colds or fresher’s ‘flu, and head off again with a freezer-bag full of meat. Good to see them though, and we got quite a lot of work out of them.

We enjoyed a day trip to Aberdeen to see the Spanish Riding School horses perform their magical dancing. It was quite a wonderful display, and really good to bump into so many friends – who were also taking on-board some FarmStrong advice and getting away from the farm for a day. We were there with some non-farming friends who couldn’t believe how many people that farmers know!

Scottish farming really does have a great community that I have just taken for granted. I’ll look forward to seeing you next time!