TJP Day 6 Sheep and weeds
Posted: Friday 4 July, 2014
Day 6 (Thursday) was about bringing our forty sheep home from rented grazing. OMG, how did it get to be forty? We've got a sheep course here on Sunday and it would be poor if we had no sheep here.
Took us three trips, but it all went smoothly. Before we brought the last group home, we moved Storm, George and Charlie into a fresh paddock where they are up to their bellies in grass. It's only six weeks until we bring Storm back to run with the cows. Tempus fugit :-)
Other than the sheep transporting, Dan did some general tidying up, cut the grass and so on before taking time for some well deserved relaxation, with Tess, Felix and Blossom.
One ewe didn't look right last night; I suspected fly strike but close examination revealed nothing. We did her with Crovect anyway and she seems fine this morning. The lambs will get their second dose of Heptavac, wormed and fluked on Monday and all will get a dressing of Crovect before going back to grazing.
Smokey appears to be sound, which is good.
Milking didn't go well; Annie didn't seem to have much milk. I suspect the calf ahd fed just before I brought her in and I didn't wait long enough before milking her. I think the logistics need some adjustment.
Been doing some stuff for the Festival in September and some reading on the CAP reforms in Scotland. Looks like there will be some additional support for small farmers, which is good, but the devil will be in the detail.
We had a visit, at our request, from the agent of the house builder who owns the field next to our land. It's hoaching with thistles and docks and we asked him to arrange for it to be topped pdq. The agent said he thought the owner would be happy for us to top it!!! Not going to happen - it would be a day's work for Dan and our wee tractor. Anyway, the owner has a legal duty under the 1959 Weeds Act to control these weeds. Not sure how effective the enforcement of the legislation is and I hope we won't have to use it, but who knows. Folk aren't always reasonable.
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Comments
Rosemary
Lol - that would suit us fine but I'm not sure how the fencing is. There were sheep on it last winter though. It used to belong to Dalmore, but when we bought here, it was sold as two lots and he outbid us for that field.
The agent has just phoned as I was typing to say "Mr L says you can top if if you want" so I pointed out Mr L's legal obligation to control these weeds. Agent going back to speak to Mr L :-)
If we could get a lease on the land, we'd gladly take it on and invest in the fencing. There's a "former gate" between the two fields anyway. But we're not prepared to invest in it on some informal or annual arrangement.
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SallyintNorth
Friday 4 July, 2014 at 9:35am
Re: your neighbour's weed patch... if there's nothing there harmful to cattle, and it's well fenced, you could get their permission to top it *and put the cattle on it* - they *love* topped thistles etc!