If anyone wanted to find a way to bring the sheep industry to its knees, they could not have found a better way than the recent foot and mouth outbreak.

Even though the outbreaks seemed far away in geographical terms the controls imposed on the industry and the ban on exports have had far-reaching effects on the sheep farmers. With no exports processors, supermarkets have taken full advantage of the large quantity of lambs available and have really screwed down the prices.

The Government's answer through DEFRA has been to lift restrictions as soon as practical but this has done nothing to help prices as a backlog of lambs hit the market.

The idea that everything would come back to normal as soon as restrictions were lifted is far from true with grass running out as winter approaches.

Losses to the livestock industry have been estimated at between £100 million and £120 million and DEFRA secretary Hilary Benn's £12.5 million offer of help is an insult. To rub salt into the wounds, central government has so far held back from helping the Welsh Assembly compensate producers.

Lifting the export ban should be clearing lambs but with so many hoops to jump through for lambs to qualify for export, many will miss the boat.

The cull scheme for light lambs which have no market at present is about to start though it will take some time to shift the backlog of lambs eating grass destined for breeding ewes coming off the mountains.

My draft ewes finally left the farm one month after the sale date. They were sold farm to farm through Farmers Marts to the usual buyer.

Their prolonged stay in the farm meant that the retained ewes had a large stay up the mountain and will be held back to regain condition before going to the ram.

After coming down from the mountain ewes are closed and soon after dipped against sheep scab. Luckily this year I have enough SP dip to use at Llwyn Ci but the Ty Cerrig ewes had to be dipped with an OP dip.

The sale of SP dip was banned last year because they pose a danger to the environment if they go into watercourses and the only alternative to those who still wish to dip their sheep are the OPs.

The OPs are kinder to the environment but have a reputation of not being that kind to those who carry out the dipping. The Environment Agency licenses disposal sites for spent dip and it's a shame that they didn't license the premises where dipping takes place at the same time in order to alleviate any pollution of the watercourses.

If foot and mouth disease is receding, the bluetongue (BT) virus seems to be creeping through the country and the threat to the sheep industry becoming more real. The coming of winter and the hope of colder weather should slow its progress but there is a risk of the virus-carrying midges overwintering ready for next summer.

Further to the BT trials carried out on four farms in the Bala area in June, of which Llwyn Ci was one, further trials are again going on on the same farms.

Traps catch midges inside and outside buildings in the presence of and without cattle. What is surprising is that midges are still around but in lower numbers. What was surprising is that during the summer trials one night's catch amounted to 29,500 midges - I'm only glad that I didn't have the job of counting them. These days only between one and 50 are caught.

Some firms are jumping on the bandwagon and suggesting that their insect-repelling blocks could help keep midges at bay, others suggest insect repelling ear tags. Pour-ons and dips could also play a part. Maybe these ideas would be worthy of field trials next year.

This year I had no plans to visit Germany and was quite surprised that a visit had been arranged for me and five friends to go over for four days in early October. The trip signified 'someone's' last outing before a special event.