Things are settling back into a rather wet routine again now after the snow. Hopefully we will get a settled spell for a while to help the water drain away. Thanks to our volunteer checkers who have been keeping a regular on the stock.

This morning I came across a couple of young roe deer in one of the fields, they seemed to be a bit lost. I think they are last years calves (twins) and have probably just been driven off their home territory by their mother and are now having to find their own way and establish territories of their own.

The animals seem to enjoying the change in the weather from the constant rain. The cold doesn't really bother them and the snow isn't deep enough to cause them a problem as they are happy to dig down through it to the grass.

 

 The only small issue we have had is with an occasional sheep becoming tangled in bramble bushes.

 

 

There will be one or two groups to move to new pastures once the snow melts away and it is safe to move them in the trailer.

The last 3 years it's been snow and ice and this year true to form it has been floods. Every year no matter when we plan the annual round up of the Soays from Powhill the weather conspires to make the task more difficult and stressful than it might usually be.

The heavy rains across the region the day before the roundup made persuading the Soay sheep to cross the stream to part way along the site and up to the small enclosure a bit of a challenge, not too mention getting there along flooded roads in the first place! The annual roundup and move to the winter grazing site is always an event which has the potential to take much longer than anticipated as the Soays are not renowned for their co-operation! However with help from Dave and Sarah and despite a couple of minor hiccups they were all successfully gathered in are now happily grazing away on their winter site.

Now all we have to do is catch them up in the spring to take them back there next year!!

Well this years lambs are arriving steadily and winter grazing has started on 2 sites in Durham which require shearlings to graze hem as they are quite 'hard' sites and the younger sheep wouldn't thrive there. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks the rest of the lambs should be in situ and we can get the winter programme fully under way.

Don't forget there are plenty of shearlings available for the box scheme. Should anyone fancy trying one they will be available until the end of November and then there will be a break until the end of March.

Contact us at Flexigraze@northwt.org.uk

After battling with the wet weather all summer we have eventually been able to move some cattle onto Druridge pools. There are less of them than we would have liked but this season has been thrown all over the place by the quantity of rain there has been. Hopefully next year will be better.

Sitting here keeping out of the rain working out the logistics of all the stock movements that need to be done over the next few weeks. It is always tricky at this time of year with the new intake of sheep arriving from the hill farms. We are looking to buy nearly 200 this year to bring the numbers back up to around 300.
With groups of last years animals to move onto the sites with poor quality grazing we have to do some careful planning to ensure that no movement standstills are accidentally broken. It all usually goes smoothly unless there are unplanned for delays, for example there is one bunch that cannot be moved at present as the access routes are underwater. Only an inconvenience but does mean that jobs can keep being pushed back.

Jess and I took some sheep down to the woolly event at Tyne Riverside Country Park a couple of Sundays ago on one of the few sunny days this summer.
The 2 sheep are different breeds, one being a Shetland and the other a Manx Loaghtan.
They drew a lot of attention as did Jess who divided her time between being petted by the numerous visit and keeping an eye on any other dogs passing by.