The weather has continued in it's by now regular pattern . temperatures swinging up and down . The days have been mostly rather windy , with sunshine and passing storms or longer periods of wind and rain . Rainfall amounted to 30.5 mm over the week , so keeping the fields on Manor Farm topped up .

When the sun shone Kevin and his team of helpers have been steadily putting the older and stronger lambs , with their mothers, out into fields of grass with plenty of trees for shelter . They have also been putting biodegradable jackets on the lambs to give them protection from the rain and wind. It is at this point that I am making a plea for all people who walk their dogs along rights of way and parkland , to ensure the dogs are under control when there are ewes and lambs in the vicinity . It is very distressing for shepherds to find sheep that have suffered a dog attack and lambs can easily be separated from their mothers or even killed .Injured sheep also attract corvids , such as crows and ravens , which are always looking around for an easy meal .

During the week I attended a meeting of a recently formed " South West Livestock and Access Group " This group has been set up , particularly focusing on the health and safety aspect of people using rights of way (ROW ) across fields where the are livestock , as there have been several accidents and some deaths involving cattle , especially suckler beef cows with their calves. Hopefully the attendes representing , user groups , farmers , government Health and Safety and council ROW officers will be able to come up with a workable solution.

Returning to the subject of dogs once again , when Kevin has finished lambs going for meat he always receives a report from the abbatoir. This report , produced following a vet inspection of the sheep at the abbatoir , will make him aware of any problems found within the body of the sheep . In recent years the report has shown an increase in internal damage caused by a variety of parasites commonly found in dogs . If it is possible could dog owners who access the countryside please make sure that their dogs are regularly wormed . Farmers are trying to reduce the amount of anthelmintics they use , as parasites are showing increasing resistance to treatment . Infection with parasites also cause animals to suffer in a number of ways ,even leading to death . If we all try to help the problem it will hopefully reduce . Most farmers have a health plan which is monitored together with their vets , who advise on how to reduce worm burdens on pasture .As part of this all farm dogs have to be part of the plan and shown to be regularly wormed , which will be checked by farm assurance inspectors.

I recently attended the National Farmers Union Conference 2020 , which was entitled "Farming Without Boundaries " . The opening address was given by our president Minette Batters , who was insistent that on leaving the EU any trade arrangements should not allow foods, produced in other countries to standards not compatible with ours ,regarding the environment , food safety or health and welfare to be imported into the UK. A very interesting part of the conference was a presentation by the fairly new NFU Education Team, who are running a new initiative called STEMterprise. Since 2017 2,500 teachers have been engaged with the initiative and many farmers trained to go into schools .The letters STEM are the first letters of the words Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics . it is an initiative designed to connect primary school children with farming and the countryside.