Tynewydd Farm

Shearing completed for another year.  After a range of downpours on Saturday the sheep amazingly dried up early doors on Sunday.  Quite a few of the lambs are now 50+kgs and Arkle Pacific Star really has thrown some great confirmation.  Haddo Lucky Strike is excellent for growth, length and backs but misses a little on the hind-quarters. 

I've been quite surprised to see how many people are weaning their lambs already.  Do I miss a trick?  We leave them on their mothers with a diet of grass until July.  I have enough of a battle with Marj to get them off then!

We've also been contemplating this year's show team and we'll get them out to have some dry feed in a couple of weeks - there was some deliberation at shearing.  I may also take the controversial decision of giving them some tuition before the shows.  I normally just take them along and hold on... my sister's not been the biggest fan of this approach so I'll finally give in and find some halters from somewhere.



In my other life, work has been hotting up, having spent the best part of the last 2 weeks in Belgium I doubt I'll be stepping far outside of Heathrow for the next 6 weeks.  The project has been rumbling on for the last 2 years and it will be an amazing sensation to let the public loose on it on the first day.  If all goes to plan I'll get the project live, have a stag-do, go to the Royal Welsh and then get married to the lovely Dr Lodge on the 24th July.

Tynewydd Texels now features on the new website www.texelbreeders.com.

Not much to report of late.  We sold both of our Charolais bull for this year at home recently and the cattle have now all been put outside despite the cold weather.  A TB scare turned out to be nothing but it didn't stop us from being on hold going to the sales for 2 weeks.

Our random lamb deaths of earlier in the year tuned out to be pulpy kidney.  As we don't vaccinate the in-lamb ewes or the lambs we learned a painful lesson.  We'll be using the 7 in 1 as of next year.  Around 8 lambs, typically some of the strongest, died in only a couple of weeks as a result.

Despite these set-backs they have continued to grow out well.  If I ever get round to uploading them to BASCO the 8 week weight was very good.  The average being around 30kg and the heaviest of the ram lambs up to 36.5kg.  They've continued to grow into May and some of the larger ones must be heading to the mid-40's now.  We've only resorted to creep feeding some of those who were not doing so well: mothers with not enough milk; one lamb stronger than the other.  The main are just on grass and seem to be doing just fine.  We've often struggled with this.  On creep they do put on more weight but they are more susceptible to orf and footrot; plus they really do badly once they go off it later in the year. 

The shearlings are about the best bunch we've had and two twins in particular are standing out with plenty of character and some great backs.  I'll get some pictures up soon from my shiny new Canon EOS 50D.

The gimmers are a bit of a mixed bunch as yet.  They've not been fed at all and have been stuck out the other end of the farm on some rougher ground for most of the past 6 months.  The full sister to the 2008 Welsh National winner Tynewydd MDY07 559 is an absolute cracker.  She won't be leaving the farm in a hurry! Especially after we lost her mother in the winter - I'd often intended to use her as an ET donor but never got round to it.  Maybe I'll try that this year.

I considered entering for the Royal Welsh this year.  It's a huge commitment and with my wedding the following weekend and stag-do the weekend before (as a result of having several pals travelling from abroad) we decided against doing the show this year.  I look forward to hopefully having the stock and time in 2011. 

Well, we finally gave in and after waiting for some grass to grow and the weather to warm up we've given up and put 22 ewes with lambs out today.  Fingers crossed they'll be okay this evening and Mr Fox finds them a bit too much of a challenge.  Fly got fended off by spray 52 which made me think they'll probably be okay.

We had a dissapointing day yesterday with three of the lambs randomly dropping dead.  A post-mortem this morning wasn't conclusive but the evidence is pointing towards them overdosing on Supalyx general sheep suplement.  It's never happened to us before but the ulcerated stomach full of syrupy looking brown liquid made us think this was probably what did it.  This was a strong motivation to get them outside.

Having got up to date tagging with the Allfex bubblegum tags I have no idea when we'll get round to putting the (ridiculous EU designated) EID tags in.  They're really heavy and look like an accident waiting to happen.  We pitched for the Ritchey golf tee style which I now think was a mistake.   The key thing is that it seems an utterly pointless activity.  What do we need the EIDs for?  We know far more about the sheep in the country than any other animal including the people.  We know the ancestory over several generations, have records for everywhere they go, have records for every dose of medication they receive and now we also have RFID tags so that you can "electronically identify them".

We've now finished the majority of the lambing for 2010 with good results so far.  A lot can happen during the year but as yet the lambs from Arkle Pacific Star are the best we have ever had.  They've got fantastic character and have been growing incredibly quickly.  Like Pacific Star they have the same thick white hair and have worked particularly well with the Haddo Lucky Strike daugters.

Cae Waen Priest did not have as many ewes as Pacific Star so it's much more difficult to get a clear idea of the quality of his lambs over such a small number.  We have particularly good ewe lamb and it will be good to see how she grows out.  He looks like he'll make a massive yearling and is one of the least sociable animals we have... only Pacific Star will stay in the same field as him so the two of them are traumatising people walking on the footpath!