While weather and grass growth has slowly improved, most farmers continue to find themselves in a difficult position. A significant improvement in ground conditions and an increase in grass growth are still required to put farms back on the right track.

Yearling hoggets rearing lambs are likely to be under the greatest pressure with a risk of lifetime performance being negatively affected if those facing challenges are not given priority attention.

In a normal year, the advice for yearling hoggets rearing twin lambs is to manage in a similar manner to ewes rearing triplet lambs. This includes supplementing ewes with 0.5kg concentrate for the first five weeks of lactation and offering lambs creep feed.

Given the difficult weather, there may be merit in increasing this supplementation rate to 0.7kg to 0.8kg, with animals in poor body condition score requiring a daily rate of 1kg or higher. The length of the feeding period may also need to be extended this year if ewes are under pressure – the investment will pay a dividend in boosting milk yield and lamb performance.

The performance of hoggets and lambs will also need to be monitored closely as it may be necessary to remove one lamb where hoggets are not capable of rearing them.

Lactating hoggets with single lambs at foot will also benefit from even a low level of concentrate supplementation. Where grass supplies are good and hoggets are in good body condition then supplementation can be limited to 0.3kg to 0.5kg, increasing to 0.8kg to 1kg where grass supplies are tight and hoggets are lacking in body condition.

The performance of hoggets and lambs will also need to be monitored closely as it may be necessary to remove one lamb where hoggets are not capable of rearing them

It is also important to include hoggets in the worm control programme for their first year as where hoggets are under greater nutritional stress it will take them longer to build a natural immunity to worms. Longer-term, it may be a year that serious thought should be given to earlier weaning to give hoggets a longer recovery time before subsequent breeding.

Experience from the Teagasc BETTER farm sheep programme shows hoggets in a normal year being an average of 5kg to 7kg liveweight behind two-tooth hoggets that didn’t rear lambs with body condition score generally 0.25 to 0.5 of a unit lower. The gap in performance may be even greater this year if remedial action is not taken when required.