Well that’s lambing time in full swing again for us – as I write this I sincerely hope that any farmers calving and lambing at the moment did not experience the biblical downpour last week that turned our lambing fields into rivers within hours.

At this point, I am not even sure whether our business activity should still be classed as agriculture, or changed to aquaculture.

Sadly, our polytunnel that was destroyed during a storm in January could not be put up again in time for lambing, so we’ve had to improvise this year.

Our hungry feathered 'friends' were unable to go out to hunt at sea during the stormy weather, which added further pressures to getting newborns out of the fields and into temporary shelter in the shed as soon as possible before they became a snack.

Thankfully, the weather has since calmed down again. A good thing too, as almost one-fifth of the stud flock decided to lamb before the official start date and the first of the hill lambs are starting to appear now.

Our stud ewes are lambed across several in-bye fields and unless there is a problem these remain in the lambing field for a couple of days after giving birth. We then register their lambs and record their lambing scores.

Comments are also added to the ewes’ records to note any issues and other relevant information before the twins are turned out onto shoreline grazing and the singles back onto rough grazing.

The recording adds a lot of work to what is already a very busy time of the year, but we are seeing the benefits from that data every year thanks to being able to carry out better selection of ewe hoggs and more targeted culling of ewes. It also allows us to only keep the very best of the tup hoggs to use on the hill.

As we take note of ewes with problems, as well as ewes with show potential that keep catching our eyes, it can be very tempting to become overly focused on the fancy ones.

But when we take a closer look at the records and lifetime performance, it is often the ones that go unnoticed that tend to be the best producers, the ‘invisible’ ewes that work away in the background without demanding attention of any kind.

This is especially true in many cases where they outperform the fancy ones because we all know what happens to sheep when they become our 'favourites' ... I’ve stopped adding comments to the records for good lambs, as I might as well write out a death sentence.

Selection for superior breeding stock can be quite challenging on a farm where productivity is so much more dictated and restricted by a challenging environment and generally depressing weather.

Best practice, although often carefully written up based on trials and monitor programmes, is of limited applicability out here because it is often based on lowland scenarios, where it can work very well, depending on the system.

For example, if we were to only retain twin ewe lambs for breeding, we would end up with disastrous lambings on the hill where the limited nutrition makes it pretty much impossible for ewes to rear twins.

We actually did try this in one group that is fully recorded and we ended up with ewes that were too productive for their environment. They put so much energy into rearing multiples that they compromised their own reserves and failed to rear good quality lambs.

Years ago, when I was still involved in the Suckler Beef Climate Group (yes, years ago, that’s how long farmers have been trying to help ScotGov to come up with sensible policy), I came across an interesting research paper that spoke about the dilemma of chasing increasing productivity.

This stated that the singular focus on continuously increasing genetic prolificacy and productivity had the unintended consequence of gradually selecting animals which were genetically programmed to maintain lower levels of reserves because they put a greater extent of energy and effort into production, which could compromise their own maintenance.

If the environment was favourable, they will outcompete other animals in terms of output, which works if the system is set up to do so, but if they hit a hard spell, or a shortfall in nutrition, then they don’t have the reserves needed to recover and often end up with a shorter productive lifespan.

The paper concluded that, in essence, continuously breeding for more and more productivity can put animal health and welfare at risk because the animal becomes so incredibly reliant on a hugely complex yet narrow system to meet its highly specific needs.

Needless to say that this simply does not work in a hill situation. So, instead of getting too worried about the number of lambs produced per year per ewe, we focus on whether she is able to rear whatever she produces whilst looking after herself enough to get her back in lamb, through the winter, and produce another lamb the following year.

We’ve also abandoned the standard culling strategy by age in an attempt to work with ewes with superior longevity, which is really a trait that reflects good health, resilience and efficiency.

This will mean that the best performing ewes remain on the farm as long as they keep producing and rearing lambs without issues and we find that our older age groups really do perform exceptionally well.

Ironically, we now have a breeding regime whereby if you select for resilience over prolificacy, you’ll see much higher prolificacy because the right kind of ewe is rearing twins because she is hugely efficient at utilising rough grazing and withstanding bad weather.

And if you select for invisible sheep with higher longevity, they’ll become very much visible because they do such a fantastic job.

Now that I’ve probably confused you, I shall head back outside to give the freshly lambed eight-crop ewe some breakfast because she clearly is not the favourite and her twin lambs clearly have no show potential!