I farm: “500ac of mainly upland ground across three different farms in mid and north Co Antrim. The farms are owned by Alec and Margaret McMullan and I have been farm manager for five years.”

Livestock: “We run 1,000 ewes, 120 suckler cows and 150 bought-in store cattle. Ewes are pure-bred New Zealand Romney and Romney-Lleyn crosses. The sucklers are pure-bred Stabilisers. Bulls are finished at 13-16 months and heifers are sold as breeding stock.”

Lambing: “We lamb the ewes outdoors and don’t start until 10 April. It’s a tried and tested system. We have lambed earlier and had more ewes indoors in the past, but we have found this system works best for this farm.”

Jonny has been working for the McMullans for five years.

Grass: “By lambing later, ewes are hitting peak energy requirement as grass starts to grow. We have ewes on deferred grazing on hill ground until a month before lambing, so there is usually plenty of grass available. It means we feed very little concentrates. Last year, we only fed 2.5t of meal.”

Performance: “The lambing assistance rate for the Romneys is only 2%. Lambs from the nucleus pure-breed Romney flock are EID tagged at birth and growth rates are tracked throughout the summer. Replacements are retained based on performance.”

Summer grazing: “Grass is a key part of our system and we have started to sharpen up on our grazing management. We rotationally grazed a batch of 340 ewes, 500 lambs and 37 cows last summer. They were shifted every three to five-days and were in fields around 10ac in size.

NSA: “I was elected Northern Ireland chair of the National Sheep Association earlier this month. I first got involved in the NSA in 2015, through their young ambassador programme. It involved five trips to Britain for farm walks and professional development workshops.”

Quotable quote: “With rotational grazing, we grew more grass, the stock did well and they were easier to manage, especially when it came to gathering for dosing.”

Read more

My Farming Week: Colm O'Sullivan, Kilmeaden, Co Waterford

Dairylink: rain halts field work in Armagh