Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Ewe management the focus of second Shetland monitor farm meeting

Kirsty and Aimee Budge
Kirsty and Aimee Budge

Management of pregnant ewes will be up for discussion at the second meeting of the Shetland monitor farm later this week.

Two sisters – Kirsty and Aimee Budge – are the monitor farm hosts for the Shetland region at their Bigton Farm, which is located on the west side of the Shetland south mainland.

The farm is one of nine farms taking part in the new monitor farm programme being run by Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) and AHDB Cereals and Oilseeds.

Funded by a £1.25million grant from the Scottish Government, the scheme aims to help improve the productivity, profitability and sustainability of Scottish farm businesses.

Bigton stretches across 740 acres of mainly permanent pasture and intensive grassland. The Budge sisters run 240 Shetland cross Cheviot ewes, and 70 Salers cross Shorthorn suckler cows.

The next meeting at Bigton, which takes place on Saturday, April 1, will focus on ewe management with a view to discussing how to improve scanning percentages and lamb survival rates.

Starting at Bigton Hall at 11am, the Budge sisters will start the meeting by explaining how they manage their ewes in the run up to lambing.

In 2016, Bigton ewes scanned at 157%, and this increased to 164% this year. However the sisters, who have managed the farm since 2014 with support from their family, are really keen to improve their current rearing percentage of 109%.

Kirsty said: “Bigton generally has a good scanning percentage but we lose a lot of lambs before weaning.

“So we are keen to hear from others on Shetland about how we can improve this as clearly every lamb successfully reared makes an important contribution to our farm income.

“We would also like to learn why some of our ewes lose their lambs after scanning and hope that others who farm on Shetland will share their experiences so that all the flockowners in Shetland can benefit and reduce losses in their own flocks.”

Other topics up for discussion at Saturday’s meeting include the importance of condition scoring ewes, ewe health and tips on how to save hypothermic lambs. Speakers include Graham Fraser from SAC Consulting and Jim Tait of Shetland Vets.

The meeting, which runs until 3pm, is free to attend however farmers and crofters are asked to register in advance by contacting Mr Fraser on 01595 693520, or email frbslerwick@sac.co.uk.