The Year Round: Silaging under way after the sheep moved on

Much hay and silage has been cleared from the areas below Friars Hagg.

On this high-lying, north Pennines sheep farm we started cutting grass only a week ago.

The main reasons are twofold. We have no land here below 1,000 feet altitude and most meadows are grazed by Swaledale ewes and lambs until the end of May.

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Our treeless, heather moorland edges towards the Cumbrian border and reaches the 1,800ft altitude.

The open grazing carries a ewe and a lamb comfortably but our lambing averages

are gradually rising year by year and ewes milking twins at this time of year need better grazing than pure heather.

We have made a start shearing sheep.

Tup hoggs to be sold as shearlings in the autumn ram sales have lost their fleeces and clipped well.

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All our store cattle have been sold to lowland farmers who will feed them for the butcher.

Beef prices have dropped 20 pence per kilo since spring.

Fly strike is a worse problem in sheep this year. All our ewes and lambs are sprayed early in the season and this should last them into August. The whole stock received a protective dip before winter sets in.

Young grouse are at the fledgling stage and we try not to disturb them. There seems a reasonable crop of birds. Swallows arrive here every spring.

They use 10 different buildings to nest inside. House martins nest outside under the eaves and gutters, but do not frequent this high homestead.

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Larks and other small birds are under constant threat from sparrowhawks.

These predators attack possibly just one bird in a clutch, but that action results in the death of the whole brood.

It is against the law to reduce the sparrowhawks.

CW 10/7/10