LIVESTOCK losses experienced on an Eden sheep farm are being used to highlight concerns that increasingly variable weather conditions are having a bigger impact on grassland than previously thought.

Several years of cold, wet weather have taken their toll on Steven and Jo Brown and their 800 Swaledale ewes at Bow Hall Farm near Dufton near Appleby.

Not only have they borne the brunt of tending their flock in some of the worst winters on record, their grazing has taken a pounding nutrient-wise as a series of blood tests instigated by their vet are now only just revealing.

“In the past we’ve had a lot of sheep that just would not put any condition on no matter what we did and if they did, they would slowly lose it,” said Steven.

“We’d think they would be fit at the back end of the year and through until Christmas, but they would then just lose condition and it wasn’t through lack of feed or anything else we could see.

“We also had more than our fair share of barren ewes – often up to 50 or so – and we had no idea what was causing it. They’d be tupped but just wouldn’t hold.”

With 330 acres of their own land and grazing rights on the 12,000 acre Dufton Fell for 540 sheep, Selenium deficiency has long been an established problem in the area but all attempts to address this seemed to have little effect.

“We used drenches and the ewes would brighten up for a bit but then we’d back at square one a few weeks later," said Steven. "Licks also seemed to have little effect. We seemed to be spending a lot of money but never really getting any further forward.”

After the exceptionally harsh Winter of 2012/13 when they lost 200 lambs, the Browns called on the expertise of Helen Latimer of Tethera Vets in Appleby, who suspected changes in the land and the sheep following the severity of the recent conditions.

It was decided to do away with the drenches and licks and start using a sustained release rumen bolus - Agrimin Smartrace - that would ensure all the ewes had the exact amount of key trace elements delivered into the blood stream on a daily basis.

These were administered in October 2013 and in the same month in 2014 to see the ewes right through the critical 180 days of the breeding cycle from tupping to lambing.

“Our ewes had taken a real beating in the previous years so Helen explained it would take some time for the balance of trace elements be fully restored in the animals and production improvements to be seen,” Steven explains.

“But when the ewes were tested the following March – some four months into the bolus being present - all the blood levels were bang on so we knew it was doing its job.”

Further blood tests in the flock in August 2014 – four months after the original bolus would have been depleted – identified the known selenium problem once again but this time a new Iodine deficiency was picked up, too.

The flock was again given the Smartrace boluses in October 2014 and Helen Latimer is confident blood levels will now be sustained at the correct levels through the next few critical months.

“Unfortunately, these changes in the trace element status of animals are becoming routine these days so more regular blood tests do have to be carried out and more targeted and accurate methods of controlling blood levels used.

“We’ve seen problems with Copper coming to the fore on farms where it has never been a an issue before, for example, and the only way you can pick this sort of thing up is through regular blood testing.”

Fortunately, at around £1 each the boluses work out at about the half the cost of treatment with drenches and are far more effective, she says.

“Drenches are absorbed quickly and tend to pass through the animal quickly so do not support optimum nutrient levels throughout the cycle and licks tend to be more attractive to some animals than others so uptake is extremely variable.”

For Steven and Jo relying more on the advice of their vet is an important part of their business strategy moving forward.

“It’s been a really tough few years and we knew we had to do something if we were to stay in business, but the impact simple trace element deficiencies can have on the viability of an enterprise has been a real eye opener for us.

“From now on regular blood testing and timely application of targeted trace element supplementation will be a key feature of our health and fertility management.”