Well it has certainly been an interesting couple of months since my last post. The warmer weather has been a long time coming and because of that grass and any type of growth has been slow.

Over the winter in general there has been less grazing needed on many sites due to the ground being so wet and much of the grass being trodden into the ground instead of being available to graze. The upshot of this has been that stock has been on some sites for a much shorter time than normal which has put pressure on the fields we use as 'lay back' for the animals when they are not needed on the conservation areas.

In general there has been less demand for cattle grazing over the recent months. Some of this is undoubtedly due to budget pressures within the different organisations we graze for. Quiet native breed cattle which are suitable for this type of grazing are not easy to source and with the drop in demand could well lead to some of our graziers withdrawing from the programme. With the ever increasing threat of TB moving northwards I do wonder if using small groups of cattle to graze small and disjointed parcels of land will remain feasible in the future.

This years shearlings have been much slower to finish than usual and when we did have some ready the abattoir had shut down for a refit meaning another 3 week wait. However all is up and running again now and batches are going through at a steady pace. There will plenty of shearling lamb available from our rare breeds through out June and if anyone is interested the can contact us at flexigraze@northwt.org.uk