Llywelyn Rosser 22 Gloucestershire
Contract shepherding and running his own flock of 350 ewes on rented ground, new entrant Llywelyn has overcome some of the challenges faced by many young farmers to acquire land to be able to progress their businesses. Building up his flock from scratch with no support payments means Llywelyn is conscious to produce lambs efficiently - setting him up, he hopes, to be able to grow numbers in the future. Llywelyn is looking forward to meeting like minded people during the programme and believes the chance to get off farm both to learn and network will help him with his own confidence as well as his business. He is also keen to become involved with NSA longer term, he says: “I believe the programme will help me massively and so I am looking forward to getting involved in my NSA region giving back for what I’m about to gain.”
Feb/March Update
March has been a busy month. I sold the last of the hoggs bought in September and due to the high prices had a draw out of the bottom end of my ewe lambs. I was glad to see the back of them after a winter of continuous rain and mud. March seems no different so far but at least it has been warm with it! I had a small bit of contracting work helping to vaccinate and record ewe scanning results as well as some cattle work. My focus soon shifted to my ewes and bringing them back to the lambing fields near to home which was a much slower process this year having to use the tractor on the stock trailer to get in and out the fields. I have had a bit of a disappointing start to lambing as one group of ewes had some early aborted lambs, we had our vet autopsy them and the results came back as campylobacter as the issue. But as lambing has progressed it seems to be getting better, so fingers crossed it continues that way. Soon I will need to start getting some electric fencing out on the herbal leys ready for the ewes and lambs .
April/May Update
May has been a busy month in the Cotswolds, I finished lambing which on the whole went well after a sticky start which i talked about in my last post. Even when the weather was against us lambing outside in the constant rain at the start of April but luckily it was warm with it which kept the grass growing until mid April when the weather turned colder and it stayed that way until the first week of may. The ewes and lambs seem to be motoring on well on both the herb leys and the permanent pasture. All the lambs except a few later born ones have had their first dose of heptavac and at the same time a white worm drench for nematodirus all the lambs have had a treatment of crovect for fly strike prevention. All the ewes have had fly cover put on as they won't be shorn until July. When I've not been busy with the sheep i have been busy silaging or ploughing and power harrowing ground for maize at a local dairy farm.
August/September Update
Having gotten back from a good 3 days away at the end of July with the NSA around Malvern where we covered personal development with Wyn Owen of which i found the time management very useful. I had a great evening on the march`s region table at the sheep event dinner. And of course, a great day at the sheep event. And on the final day we had a very interesting look at Bradley farm and looked at their diverse enterprises on sheep, beef, combinable crops including combining grass seeds as well as milking goats which was then followed by a talk about signet recording/ ebv`s, then it was straight back home in time to look around some ewes. August seemed to fly by and was very busy silaging, making hay and hauling straw back to a farm I help out on. I also managed to get some more stubble turnips drilled by a contractor for my own sheep for winter grazing. September followed much the same. I have been struggling to get condition on lambs this autumn. The herb leys haven't performed well here with the very little sunlight we have had. I also feel that the grass quality is poorer this year and since weaning i feel the ewes haven't bounced back as well as they normally do. I have now pulled all the killing lambs off the herb ley and have split them into two groups based on weights, the bigger weighing lambs are on some lucerne, and red clover leys and the smaller lambs are on a cover crop that was drilled behind OSR so hopefully they are heading in the right direction now. I am now just beginning to think about getting the ewes into groups for tupping as it won't be long!
Contract shepherding and running his own flock of 350 ewes on rented ground, new entrant Llywelyn has overcome some of the challenges faced by many young farmers to acquire land to be able to progress their businesses. Building up his flock from scratch with no support payments means Llywelyn is conscious to produce lambs efficiently - setting him up, he hopes, to be able to grow numbers in the future. Llywelyn is looking forward to meeting like minded people during the programme and believes the chance to get off farm both to learn and network will help him with his own confidence as well as his business. He is also keen to become involved with NSA longer term, he says: “I believe the programme will help me massively and so I am looking forward to getting involved in my NSA region giving back for what I’m about to gain.”
Feb/March Update
March has been a busy month. I sold the last of the hoggs bought in September and due to the high prices had a draw out of the bottom end of my ewe lambs. I was glad to see the back of them after a winter of continuous rain and mud. March seems no different so far but at least it has been warm with it! I had a small bit of contracting work helping to vaccinate and record ewe scanning results as well as some cattle work. My focus soon shifted to my ewes and bringing them back to the lambing fields near to home which was a much slower process this year having to use the tractor on the stock trailer to get in and out the fields. I have had a bit of a disappointing start to lambing as one group of ewes had some early aborted lambs, we had our vet autopsy them and the results came back as campylobacter as the issue. But as lambing has progressed it seems to be getting better, so fingers crossed it continues that way. Soon I will need to start getting some electric fencing out on the herbal leys ready for the ewes and lambs .
April/May Update
May has been a busy month in the Cotswolds, I finished lambing which on the whole went well after a sticky start which i talked about in my last post. Even when the weather was against us lambing outside in the constant rain at the start of April but luckily it was warm with it which kept the grass growing until mid April when the weather turned colder and it stayed that way until the first week of may. The ewes and lambs seem to be motoring on well on both the herb leys and the permanent pasture. All the lambs except a few later born ones have had their first dose of heptavac and at the same time a white worm drench for nematodirus all the lambs have had a treatment of crovect for fly strike prevention. All the ewes have had fly cover put on as they won't be shorn until July. When I've not been busy with the sheep i have been busy silaging or ploughing and power harrowing ground for maize at a local dairy farm.
August/September Update
Having gotten back from a good 3 days away at the end of July with the NSA around Malvern where we covered personal development with Wyn Owen of which i found the time management very useful. I had a great evening on the march`s region table at the sheep event dinner. And of course, a great day at the sheep event. And on the final day we had a very interesting look at Bradley farm and looked at their diverse enterprises on sheep, beef, combinable crops including combining grass seeds as well as milking goats which was then followed by a talk about signet recording/ ebv`s, then it was straight back home in time to look around some ewes. August seemed to fly by and was very busy silaging, making hay and hauling straw back to a farm I help out on. I also managed to get some more stubble turnips drilled by a contractor for my own sheep for winter grazing. September followed much the same. I have been struggling to get condition on lambs this autumn. The herb leys haven't performed well here with the very little sunlight we have had. I also feel that the grass quality is poorer this year and since weaning i feel the ewes haven't bounced back as well as they normally do. I have now pulled all the killing lambs off the herb ley and have split them into two groups based on weights, the bigger weighing lambs are on some lucerne, and red clover leys and the smaller lambs are on a cover crop that was drilled behind OSR so hopefully they are heading in the right direction now. I am now just beginning to think about getting the ewes into groups for tupping as it won't be long!
