Blowfly strike: The incidence of blowfly strike has been lower in recent times, but has been increasing in line with temperatures rising and damp, muggy conditions. Farmers who applied preventative treatment early in the season need to keep a good eye out for cases of blowfly strike.

Where there is more than an odd isolated case and particularly where there are cases in clean fleeces it should act as a signal that the period of cover has likely passed. Cases are also being reported in ewe hoggets and ewes shorn earlier in the season.

There are more options available at this stage of the year with products which offer a shorter duration of cover and plunge dipping being in a position to provide cover until the blowfly strike season has likely passed.

It is important to remain mindful of withdrawal periods. In terms of dipping products, the withdrawal period ranges from 14 days in Cyperguard (only available in Ireland) to 35 days on average for the organophosphate-based dips. Dipping has the added benefit of providing cover for the full suite of external parasites.

Care should be taken where purchasing sheep, with cases of sheep scab on the rise in recent years.

Remember also where applying pour-on products that many do not treat an active strike and, therefore, any cases need to be treated in advance of applying pour-on.

Ram effect: The ram effect can be used with high levels of success to compact the mating season and subsequent lambing season.

For the ram effect to work, female sheep should be out of sight and smell of rams for the previous month.

The timetable includes introducing rams on day one. The process works best where teaser or aproned rams are joined with females. Rams can be removed after 24 to 48 hours. The introduction of adult rams will trigger a silent heat (not detected by rams) in most ewes that are not already cycling within 36 hours, while a proportion will have a second silent heat after six days.

Ewes will cycle approximately 17 days after the final silent heat, giving rise to two peak mating periods – at day 18 after rams were first introduced and day 23. However, it is recommended to introduce fertile rams to ewes at day 14 to allow for any variation in cycle length and also to pick up any sheep which were already cyclic at time of ram introduction.

Ewe condition: Once ewes are weaned, the attention should quickly turn to addressing ewe body condition. 2023 has been a hard year on sheep and reports indicate there are a higher percentage of ewes lacking condition.

Increasing a ewe’s body condition score (BCS) is very worthwhile and Teagasc research shows that increasing BCS by one score within a range of 2.5 to 4 has the potential to increase litter size by 0.13 lambs.

On average, it will take eight to 10 weeks on good-quality grass to gain one condition score (approx 9kg to 12kg liveweight for mature ewe weights of 75kg to 80kg). Ewes should be batched in two groups - a batch requiring preferential treatment and a batch that can be used to follow lambs or preferential treatment ewes to clean out paddocks.