Lambing is well underway for 160 ewes in Innovis' nucleus flock at Mynydd Gorddu, the new Innovis farm. The first ewes started lambing on the weekend, with peak day on Tuesday and all should be lambed by this weekend.
Half of the 160 ewes are Aberdale nucleus ewes lambing to AI and the remainder are recipient ewes carrying embryos from 25 of the best donor ewes in the flock. The majority of the ewes are carrying a little bit too much condition for lambing (CS 3.5) but are lambing well over all with good sized lambs. All ewes and lambs are recorded including lambing ease, lamb vigour and mothering behaviour of the ewes with EID tags being put in the lambs within 12 hours.
We faced all the usual challenges of lambing in a new farm with building work needed to be completed on the lambing sheds; new walk through feeders and pens to put up; water, electricity and lights to sort out. Another challenge is the weather and lack of early grass growth on an exposed farm at 1000ft for an early lambing Texel flock.
With this in mind ewes and lambs will be moved down to better pasture at Peithyll when they are a few days old (120 acre lowland unit four miles away). Following the decision to not lease Aberdale ram lambs next year this will be the last year that Innovis will have an early lambing flock. The whole nucleus flock will be lambed during March and April next year to coincide with grass growth at Mynydd Gorddu.
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