Winter appears to be back with a vengeance. Rain,wind and plummeting temperatures seem to be the norm each morning.

It’s also hard to believe we are already heading towards lambing again – it feels like every year with greater haste than the last.

We scanned our ewes early January and the results were fairly pleasing. Our percentage came in at 180% with 65% of the ewes carrying twins and 12.5% with triplets.

The 4% that were scanned empty have headed to the market in Forfar, and it is great to see the ewe trade remaining strong.

Our in-lamb ewes have all been dosed for fluke and their individual pregnancy data recorded onto the computer. These ewes have been strip grazing fodder beet and turnips and are also accessing good quality silage in bale rings at night. We have not provided any supplementary feed yet however, this will follow shortly.

Grass has been well rested this year so we are hopeful we have a good crop to turn ewes and lambs onto.

We also sold a big draw of finished lambs off stubble turnips, silage and Maxammon barley at the end of January which leaves us with just 45 from last year to finish before the end of February.

Our group of pure ewes used for breeding tups, have already lambed and in a much shorter period of time this year as I chose to sponge them in a bid to tighten them up. Tups served the ewes naturally in a small paddock over three days, were removed and then placed together again 15 days later, with the result being the first group successfully lambed in seven days.

This has worked really well as it has reduced the amount of time checking and hanging around waiting for them to lamb. I am also delighted at the way our new Texel stock ram – purchased at John Scott's on-farm sale at Fearn – has worked as his offspring lambed well, are up on the go and look to have a good bit of shape. We are hopeful the second lot lamb just as fast which will allow us a break between the pure and commercial lambing.

The last of the 2018-born steer and heifer crop are being finished and the 2019 calves are coming on quickly. We have been using a Ritchie Beef Monitor this year, which enables us to obtain daily feedback on weight gain and therefore reach the 400kg carcase weight limit quite accurately, achieving the best out of each individual animal.

Spring calving cows have all been mucked out in preparation for the first calves to be born at the end of February. Hopefully if the weather plays ball, we are optimistic and hope to have lovely fields of grass to turn them out onto. However, we have a good stock of silage and straw just in case and importantly an empty court if they need to be kept in. We all know we have to be prepared for every eventuality when it comes to Scottish weather, so fingers crossed for a warm and sunny spring.