John Large: Why we have no choice but to reduce our inventory

We feed silage until scan time, then we feed according to litter size and condition of the ewes.

At least the spring and early summer have brought us plenty of grass, enough for bales of silage and hay to get us through the winter.

Early placement should help keep the ewes in good condition. There’s no point in losing condition outside if they run out of food.

Nor does it make sense to go back into fields that were closed first – that grass will benefit ewes with lambs more next March.

Our other problem this year was the huge increase in input costs.

Fertilizer has reached a price where we cannot justify using it to grow weed.

The stocking density needs to be reduced as we have to work with what weed we can grow with a lot less artificial fertiliser.

I know clover and multispecies turfs play a role, but they will take time to become established.

Meal has increased by more than 100 €/t. After a year of needing food to finish lambs, we had no choice but to pay the price.

Quality silage is our hope to keep ewe feed costs down.

Diesel, energy and household costs have also become more expensive.

The only product that hasn’t gone up in price is our lambs. For this week there was a move to almost €7/kg, but it’s like the rain that came after the dry summer – almost too late.

We will decide later if our reduced stock rate is for next year only or long term.

John Large Farms at Gortnahoe, Co. Tipperary