Author: Adrian Doyle

I think it is fair to say that neither of us were really looking forward to lambing this year.  The previous two years had proven tough.  Given our ewes’ propensity for lambing at awkward times, we were planning 2 hourly checks with all the sleepless nights those would entail.

That said, we had worked hard to get the facilities right, so at least there would be no half mile walks in the middle of the night to check up on them.

So, 11 ewes were led into the lambing paddock about 4 days before the first was due.  They settled in really quickly.  The first sign of anything happening was a prolapse.  That was the first of those we’d had and so out came the vet.  Later in the day, it seemed to come out again.  We called the vet but they were all out so the lady on the phone tried to talk us through what to do.  At first they asked if we could push it back in, but that wasn’t possible.  It didn’t look good so out came the vet again.  Only it wasn’t a prolapse this time but a placenta that shouldn’t have been there.

All in all, the vet wasn’t happy and called for a caesarian.  Nicole and the vet led Ursi, the ewe, into the shed while I was dispatched to fetch buckets of hot water.  One thing I will never forget is the smile on the vet’s face when we turned the light on and she saw our facilities.  Our sheep are also very tame and so easy to handle.  I swear the vet smiled all the way through the operation.  As Nicole was holding Ursi, I was handed two rather large wet ewe lambs and quickly gave them a rub down and made sure they were breathing before we put them under Ursi’s nose.

What is truly amazing is how fast Ursi recovered, up and about almost straight away.  The painkillers helped, but even so, it was remarkable.

Lambing was underway.

Now, we had four what we called special cases.  These were all ewes that had lost their lambs in previous years for one reason or another.  The second to lamb was one of those, Vi.  Last year, her lamb died in the womb so she too had experienced a Caesarian but had had no lamb to show for it.  This time, her first lamb was a malpresentation, head and one leg in the right place, but the other one tucked back.  They can’t be delivered like that and we hadn’t dealt with one of these before, so out came the vet.  It was a long wait (half an hour felt like eternity), but he arrived and delivered another two healthy ewe lambs.  We were happy but Vi was ecstatic.  She still is!  There are few things to equal the look an a ewe’s face when she has new lambs.

Witchy followed soon after.  This was her first time but she too had a malpresentation, a breach (when they try to come out backwards).  This was even more complicated so out came the vet.  Not only was it a breach, but it was quite a large lamb.  After a struggle, she got him out and handed him over to me for a quick dry and to get him breathing.  He didn’t respond that quickly, but eventually he seemed OK.  While that was going on, out popped another little ewe lamb – our first ever brown lamb.  Sadly, the ram lamb just suddenly faded away and there was nothing we could do.  Our first casualty, not an easy thing to deal with.

So, three lambings and already four visits from the vet.  Yikes.

The next was somewhat surreal.  I had been up at 4am and there was nothing happening. At 6am, I saw a ewe with lambs out in the paddock.  What was surreal was that all the mums and lambs were penned up in the shed at night.  My first thought was to wonder how they had got out.  But it was Vera.  For the second year running, she had popped out her two lambs with the minimum of fuss.  She had even dried the first off completely.  So, I woke up Nicole and we moved Vera into a pen with her two young boys.

One of the things I should mention is that we have learned how to give the lambs a really good start.  Nicole has become an expert in drying them off with a fan heater and getting them latched on to the teats.  Once dry and warm, they have enough energy to look for the teat.  It only takes a few hours for them to learn where it is and become experts.

So, one poor we lamb aside, things were going OK – not a single sign of watery mouth disease yet.

And then began the wait.

During tupping, we had marked the tups stomachs with yellow paint.  When the ewes were marked, we made a note of the date.  Gestation is usually 150 days give or take.  But 4 of the would be mums passed their dates.  And another day went by.  And another.  Then Bluemli popped out yet another massive single ram lamb (as she did two years ago) capably helped by Nicole.  We called him Yumbo!

And another went by, in fact, 10 days went by with no sign of the 4 ewes getting any closer.  Quite stressful, let me tell you!  Then, finally, Peaches (another of our special cases – lost both two years ago) popped out a little boy and girl followed quickly by Sparkle (another special case having lost one to a breach and one to watery mouth two years ago) popped out two healthy girls.

We’d managed 5 deliveries on our own.  The end was in sight.

Now, we had only had the tups in for two weeks so we knew there had to be a time limit.  We reached that day with three ewes still enjoying the lambing paddock lifestyle.  Sheep nuts and haylage on demand, comfortable quarters and a little grass if they felt like it (it was just beginning to grow).

That day passed.  Surely something had to happen soon.

Luckily, next day, Sky went into labour.  It was a difficult delivery and she was so tight we called in a vet to help.  She delivered a health boy and girl.  Next day, it was Star’s turn and she popped out two healthy boys aided by Nicole.

That left just Selene.  Now, aside from a raddle mark, Selene was showing no sign of pregnancy.  We had booked in the vet for a routine visit to help with castrating the males and we asked her to give us a second opinion.  Selene was not in lamb.  Phew, we were all done with 18 healthy lambs.

Talking of vets, we were lucky this year.  We had to call a vet out for one of the cows and then she came up to see the lambs and spotted that one of them was not quite right – no bottom!  Not uncommon in lambs but we’d missed it.  A quick op and the lamb (Ysabel) was transformed into a little bundle of play.  On the routine visit I mentioned above, we had spotted that 3 lambs had turned in eyelids.  It’s tricky thing to deal with as it requires an injection into the eyelid, but they all recovered really quickly.

And now they are all out in the field with lots of space to play and lots of fresh grass for the mums.  Play time is around 7 and we nip up to watch them bounding about hopping and skipping.  It’s what it’s all about really.

 

The calendar tells us spring is here though so far, the odd glimmer aside, the weather has remained pretty wintry.  However, winter or spring, the date for our ewes to lamb fast approaches.  The first is due April 10th, but could easily be early.

So, on Good Friday, we moved them.  This was a well planned operation.  First, we separated them at the gate between two fields.  We had to separate the pregnant ewes from those not expecting, namely last year’s lambs and a couple of adults with problems precluding them from giving birth.  That went quite well, though the use of sheep nuts to tempt them through the narrowly open gate was almost too much for the lambs who, being small, quick and agile, almost got past Nicole the gatekeeper.

Then it was a leisurely walk across the field, led by Nicole, while I ran on ahead to open the gates.  Across the field, down a steep slope, through a carefully cut hole in the fence, past the pond and into the lambing paddock.  The slope had been a bit of a worry because some of these ewes are massive and have quite short legs.  We had b=visions of them rolling down.  Thankfully, they negotiated it with no trouble at all.  In no time, the first 7 were into the lambing paddock.  However, the 4 lagging behind got it all wrong, missing the hole in the fence and gathering down the slope way below the entrance.

Nicole zipped over and led them through.

Now, a lot of thought has gone into this lambing paddock.  It has been months of work creating and building it, fencing, removing about 100m of chicken netting, removing masses of brambles, building and equipping the lambing shed.  We wanted a big shed with electricity and also access to grass.  This was the moment of truth – would the sheep like it.

Well, they love it.  A large, spacious and airy shed with fresh water and food just outside.  New views, grass that hasn’t seen a ruminant in years.  A hedge to browse.  Trees for a good head scratch.  What’s not to like?

And new creatures (hens) to observe.  The hens and sheep are sharing this area.

After a quick look round, it was time to stretch out in the afternoon sun.  Yes, afternoon sun! Mind you, the north wind was fair chilly but that’s not a problem when you have a thick woolly coat.

And now, it’s regular checks, ramping up to 3 hourly next week.  Ah, sleepless nights in store.  The good news is that the rams were only with the ewes for 2 weeks, so it should,  things hopefully going well, all be over by the end of April.  And then we’ll be posting piccies of lambs gamboling in the spring sunshine.

 

Last year’s lambing was hard.  We used an existing shed but it didn’t really go as planned.  We ended up having to lamb one ewe out in the fields and that meant a longish walk two or three times during the night for nearly two weeks (you can read about that here). Plus, the lambs were out of sight over the hill.

So, we had a think about it and decided to build lambing facilities in front of the house.  There’s a bit of an orchard there and it’s also where the chicken run is.  So, we drew up the plans.  It involves fencing on two sides.  One end already is fenced and the other has a dry stone dyke.  Plus, we need to fence the chicken houses and feeders off so they can get out but the sheep can’t get in.

It has turned out to be a long job.  This is mainly as other jobs suddenly surfaced and distracted me – pig pen extension, helping plumber with the new bathrooms, sorting out the new utility room.  And with winter approaching, all I had managed to get done was the hen area and one fence.

Luckily, my brother in law arranged a visit.  We told him to bring his drill!

The lambing shed is to nestle into a hillside so that it is tucked away out of sight.  This meant there was a bit of a drop, a metre in fact.  That seemed quite a lot, so I did some levelling.  When Matt got here, we got straight into putting the posts is.  This should have been a lot easier than it was.  However, the freezing temperatures meant the fast drying postcrete did not dry in seconds, but more like a couple of hours!  Nevertheless, we pressed on and got all the posts in.  It resembled a woodhenge!

We left them to settle and next day started on the walls.  We put up some of the walls to help stabilise things and then got to work on the roof.  We worked pretty much non-stop and by then of the day, we had all the roof beams in place and half the roof on.

Matt headed off home.  The news announced the imminent arrival of storm Caroline.  Great I thought, just what we need, high winds around a half finished shed.

But with Matt’s help, we’d broken the back of it.  I got the rest of the roof on and three walls up.  I left the fourth so I can dump some hard core in to make a better, and level, floor.  It survived the storm.

Now I am waiting for the ground to freeze this weekend so I can use the tractor to get the hardcore in.  Nearly job done.  And next year, lambing should be so much easier.  The ewes will have access to shelter, hay and fresh grass.  We’ll be able to watch them from our kitchen window.  And everything will be close to the house.

It’s two weeks to the winter solstice and the snow is falling gently outside as the afternoon draws towards night.  Storm Caroline is in the area but fortunately, the really high winds have passed us by.  It’s just a wee bit cold and blowy, so I thought I’d catch up with the blog.  It has been a few weeks!

Well, tupping time has been and gone.  We are targeting lambing for late April, so tupping was timed for mid November onwards.  Our two young tups (who we raised from lambs) remained blissfully unaware of the treat in store.  Over the year, they have matured and calmed down a bit.  This made raddling them easy, both their tummies splashed with bright yellow greasy paint.  It really helps to know when the lambs are due!

So one chilly but bright November Saturday morning, we began the process.  This was not just a case of throwing the two tups in with the ewes.  We had worked out the family trees and each tup was allocated 6 ewes.  All this year’s lambs plus one ewe with ring womb were to be kept apart.

So, first job, separating the ewes into three groups.  Nicole handled this and in next to no time we were ready for phase 2.  We moved the first group of six ewes into a small field.  Then, it was off to fetch Wart (these were his 6).  Nicole led him down with the halter.  Now, Wart and Wallace have never been apart so we had given Wallace some sheep nuts in the hope he wouldn’t notice Wart’s absence.

As we drew close to the six ewes, Wart caught their scents and was transformed from a reluctant foot dragging ball of wool to an eager beaver and was through the gate in a flash.  He couldn’t believe his luck and wasn’t sure which ewe to approach first.  The ewes were not that impressed to be honest and largely ignored him.  But, Wart was happy and we left him to it.

I nipped back up to Wallace’s field and Nicole went off to fetch the second group of six.  Wallace joined me in looking down the hill as they approached.  He remained remarkably calm, even as they came through the gate.  Of course, the first thing the ewes smelt was the sheep nuts and they were straight over to the trough.  This gave Wallace the chance to check them out, which he duly did.

After attempting to mount Peaches, who was not impressed, we noticed Vi and Vera had made a beeline for Wallace.  In fact, they stood either side of him making eyes and leaning into him.  If you can imagine a sheep flirting, well that’s what it looked like.  Wallace was happy.

We left them to it.  Wallace was indeed a busy boy and within 2 days 5 of his ewes had the tell tale yellow splodges on their rears.  In Wart’s field, a couple played hard to get so while most will be born in the first 3-4 days of lambing next year, there will likely be a two week window which we will have to monitor.

Of course, it’s never quite that simple.  A few days in, Nicole rushed back from the morning feed and check to announce that Wallace had taken his gate off and was in with Wart.  Well, we had to get him back because his mum and sister were in there!  Plus, Wart had access to his mother and grandmother.  So, we sorted them all out and reset the gate and tied it to it’s hinges.  And there’s me thinking only pigs could do that.

After around two weeks, the weather crashed and it became wet and cold.  So, we separated them back out so that they all had access to shelters.  Wallace and Wart were not that impressed at first and there was a bit of biffing.

But all is calm now, until April that is…