Farm Diary - Spring

• This tends to be our busiest time of the year on the farm, when lambing, calving and crop preparation can require a great deal of time.
• Grass fields are prepared for the new growing season by fertilisation or manure spreading to optimise the growth and rolling, which is particularly important for silage and hay fields, where stones or bumps, in the ground could break machinery.
• Cropping fields – Oats, Wheat and Barley are grown at Meikle Richorn – are left over winter with the stubbles, to allow extra feeding for wildlife and birds, they are then ploughed and sown in the spring, usually around April.
• Lambing of the pure Lleyn flock starts towards the end of April and into May, all sheep are lambed outside, and only if there is some problem, is a ewe and her lambs ever brought into the farm buildings.
• Lambs are marked, tagged and tailed, and tup lambs are castrated.
• The species-rich grassland field is shut off from grazing for a few weeks to allow plants to set seed and this also allows ground nesting birds to breed undisturbed by stock trampling. It is part of an agre-environment scheme.
• Our first calves of the year are born in May, and calving will continue for 6 weeks into June.
• May to June will see the arrival of our Minature Shetland Pony foals, they foal outside, and the foal will be up and running in a couple of hours.