I have added fecal egg counting to my farming skills
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From the Farm by Victoria Ballantyne
There was little to complain about in September, which in many ways felt like an extension of summer rather than the first month of autumn.
The warm weather and regular rain has kept our grass growing and we are in a good position going into the last months of the year.
The bulls were taken away from the cows after eight weeks. We did a bit of swapping about for the last two weeks to make sure that if any bull hadn’t been working properly another bull would cover the cows.
If you see a cow mounting another it is likely she is in heat. We didn’t see any signs of this when we changed bulls, so hopefully a good sign all three bulls were doing their job.
We will pregnancy scan the cows in early November when we wean the calves.
We sent lambs to the abattoir last week and were surprised by the light weights that came back, but a check with other finishers confirms everyone is in the same boat with bellies full of wet grass impacting on percentage return.
However a continued high price means we will still get a good return.
I have been learning how to FEC (Fecal Egg Count) lamb pooh samples. It is about as glamorous as it sounds.
I wait for lambs to pooh, then scoop some of the faecal matter into a sample pot. Once I have enough samples I take it into the house, mix it with some salty water and strain it, then put in on a special egg count slide and count the different types and species of worm eggs.
Whilst this can be done through a lab in Edinburgh, learning to do it myself and getting the results very quickly has been very useful.
I’ve been very grateful for the specialists at the Moredun Institute – located in the Pentlands Science Park at Penicuk, Midlothian – for double-checking my counts to make sure that I’m not too far off the mark.
The results allow us to make decisions about when to worm the lambs and what wormer is required.
There is international concern around worms becoming resistant to some of the drenches so it is important to get it right now to ensure that we aren’t left without an effective worm solution in 10 years’ time.
Our rotational grazing continues and works well but has led to the cows becoming particularly spoilt and always expecting new grass before they are due it.
A bit like children wanting ice cream before they have finished their mains, they start making a noise a day or so before we plan to move them.
Anyone who walks past our cattle fields has no doubt had to put up with the roar of the cows who live in eternal hope that a stranger will open a gate for them!
It’s also been a great month to catch up on maintenance. Our sheep yards have been newly concreted and awaiting construction since last year and we’ve managed to employ someone to finally get them built.
It will be good to have permanent yards after a year of using the mobile system inside.
I am set to travel London this week for an interview for a Nuffield UK Farming Scholarship.
These prestigious scholarships are awarded to only 20 people each year, so to say I’m a bit nervous is an understatement.
Whatever the outcome, I’m proud to have got to interview stage and have learnt a lot from the process.
Victoria and Jason Ballantyne run Clynelish Farm, Brora.
