Smallholding In France

The end of what had been feeling like an endless summer, arrived with a bit of a shock, with early November temperatures suddenly falling from the high 20’s, to the surprise of waking up to a light frost.

- Carole Youngs

This soon turned into a persistent drizzle for the next two days, then proper rain. We nearly did a dance in celebration! How we needed that moisture to promote a bit of grass growth while there’s still some warmth in the soil!

This year’s summer heat wave and drought continued through the autumn and has been one of the longest, and hottest on record. The exceptional temperatures, combined with little or no rainfall, have had a severe impact on all agricultural sectors: livestock, arable, orchard fruit (which is an important crop in this area; think ‘Golden Delicious’), and even the grape harvest has been badly affected! The 2016 vintage is expected to be small but of exceptional quality – so we shall be stocking our cellar as and when the new vintage becomes available!

With no grass to speak of, we started feeding concentrates to the remaining lambs in the field in early September, alongside the hay we’ve been feeding since early June – an expensive exercise, but necessary if we were to stand a hope of getting them up to market weight in a reasonable timescale.

Lambs grow at their fastest during the first few weeks of life, thanks to their mothers’ nutrient-rich milk. This rapid growth-rate gradually lessens as their mother’s milk diminishes, but if they have access to good grazing they should be able to make the transition from milk to grass without any serious check in their growth. However, if they haven’t had access to good grazing prior to weaning, they can suffer serious growth check and any that have experienced a nutritional imbalance are likely to be permanently stunted to some degree.