The Joys of Having Sheep: Getting Through This Drought

If you've driven past the fields lately, you'll have seen it for yourself , what should be lush summer grazing is now scorched and brittle underfoot. We do still have grass out there, technically, but it's burnt off and offers next to no nutrition. It might as well not be there at all. So the work of keeping everyone fed and watered has quietly become a much bigger job than usual.

Water checks, morning, noon and night

We're now doing far more frequent water checks across the whole farm. Troughs that would normally need a glance once a day are being checked multiple times, because in this heat levels drop fast and the last thing we want is anyone going without. It's become one of those jobs that never really finishes.

Chasing the shade

We've been moving the flock around more than usual too, following whatever shade we can find through the day. Sheep don't cope well when there's nowhere to escape the sun, and our older ewes in particular are really feeling it. They're slower to recover from the heat, more prone to just standing and panting, and need extra keeping an eye on. A lot of our day now revolves around making sure they're comfortable, not just fed.

Soaked sugar beet, twice a day

To help make up for the lack of goodness in the grass, and to get a bit of extra moisture into everyone,  we've moved to feeding soaked sugar beet twice a day. It's brilliant for exactly this kind of situation, but it isn't free, and doing it twice daily rather than once has bumped our feed costs up noticeably. Still, it's non-negotiable when the grazing has nothing left to give.

Fleece care matters more than ever

Because we're a fibre-only flock these days, the condition of the fleece isn't just a nice-to-have, it's the whole point. Heat stress and poor nutrition can both show up in the wool, so keeping everyone's fleece in top condition through this has become a real priority, not just an afterthought. A stressed sheep grows a poorer fleece, simple as that.

Not forgetting the wildlife

It's not just our flock feeling the squeeze ,  the local wildlife are struggling in this heat too, so we've been putting out extra water for them as well. Small thing, but it matters, and it's the kind of good farm neighbour behaviour we believe in.

Foraging the old ways

To help stretch things further without eating into our winter hay stocks, we've gone back to some of the old ways of topping up feed , willow herb, ivy, whatever forage we can responsibly find. We're being very careful not to dip into the hay too much now, because if this drought is followed by a hard winter, we simply can't afford to already be short.

It's a lot of extra work, a lot of extra cost, and a lot of extra worry , but this is farming. You adapt, you keep checking, you keep going. The joys of having sheep, eh?

One thing is for sure, we do not need to join a gym, we have never been so fit!