AUTUMN is just around the corner and the store lamb and calf sales are in full swing. All the lambs on our Kirkton and Auchtertyre farms have now been weaned, with some kept for fattening in the shed here at Kirkton while others have gone to Oatridge, near Edinburgh. The lambs are looking well, in spite of the wet summer and the first batch will be ready to go to the abattoir very soon. We have also been busy checking our ewes to decide which ones to keep on for breeding next year (stock draw time). We have been checking their weight, condition, teeth and udders, to name a few. Ping Zhou, our PhD student who is looking at the differences between the Scottish blackface and the Lleyn ewes, has been busy measuring the pelvic dimensions of each individual ewe. It took us two days to measure them all with a calliper. Ping is looking to see whether there is any connection between these measurements and lambing difficulties/mortality at lambing time.
The calves have also recently been weaned and sent to Oatridge for the winter. The cows are now back grazing on the hill, where they have been during the summer. They are part of our Moorland Management Plan, which, in turn, is part of the agri-environment scheme which we have recently signed up to. There is plenty of grass for them to eat up there at the moment and we will leave them there as long as possible.
As well as dealing with all our beasts here on the farm, we have also been very busy with visitors. The school year has started, which meant that we got a lot of SRUC new students coming here to experience the ‘real farming life’. At the beginning of September, we have had 80 MSc students from SRUC Edinburgh campus who came and stayed in our wigwams at Auchtertyre. They visited the farms and my colleague John Holland told them all about the environment, biodiversity, grassland management and other research we carry out here. The students were from a range of courses – environmental protection and management, soil,food security, plant health and ecological economics. Quite a mixed bunch but they all enjoyed their visit.