This week I thought I’d better do something about our veggie patch. Although still productive, it’s been looking a bit rough lately with weeds finally having won the battle despite my best efforts at keeping them at bay.
Truth be told I actually did very minimal weeding over the summer. The wool I’d laid down as a mulch in the spring did a brilliant job at keeping the beds looking good. But then all of a sudden, halfway through August there seemed to be weeds popping up everywhere.
Sedge grass, willow herb, nettles and creeping buttercup had merrily taken up residence in the gaps between the paving slabs going between the beds. The paths had looked great once upon a time as well as being an impenetrable weed barrier. But over the years the cement grouting between the slabs has crumbled and the weeds have been having a party ever since.
Last week I decided enough was enough and rolled up my sleeves and got to work. It was a drizzly day, perfect for weeding hahaha 🙂 My plan was to weed half the area first so that Adrian could start piling manure on at the weekend. Then I’d attack the second half next week. We have mountains of sheep-dung waiting to go on the beds as winter mulch. Unfortunately this year the badgers have discovered the muck heap and been helping themselves to worms every night. They’ve been making a right mess throwing manure in all directions. Our once neatly formed heap has turned into a gigantic cowpat. We plan to use up all the dung this autumn and site the heap somewhere else, hopefully the badgers won’t notice but we’re not holding our breath …
But back to the veggie patch, I spent a good morning filling my barrow with weeds and piling them onto the compost heap. I dismantled the mangetout frame and floppy tangle of stems. I pulled out nettles and docks that had taken up residence in amongst the Leafbeat and Chard. Then I gathered up the sprawl of pumpkin stalks from the pumpkin patch, and finally I pulled out the bolting lettuces and Borage from the salad bed.
This year was our first year growing pumpkins here in Scotland. Being so far north the growing season is short so we decided to grow a small variety to give the fruit half a chance of growing and ripening before the autumn. We planted ‘Baby Bear’ and they did really well, we had 25 pumpkins in total, plenty to make into soup to keep us going over the winter.
After a hard morning’s work I went indoors for a cup of tea but not before taking a quick photo of the almost weed-free veggie patch.
Every week, (weather depending) I arm myself with my ‘sheep bits and bobs kit’ and set off for a morning of hoof and bottom trimming. In other words, I gather in a small number of sheep and spend a lovely morning with our teddy bears doing their health checks. This includes checking and trimming their hooves, checking their bottoms and trimming their bikini lines, and if they’re woolled up I’ll trim the wool around their eyes too so they can see better.
We have nineteen sheep and doing the whole flock in one go is quite a lot for me on my own, so I do three or four each week. This means each sheep gets a health check and mini hair cut roughly every six weeks.
My ‘sheep bits and bobs kit’ is one of the most useful things I own. It contains:
Engemycin spray (aka blue hoof spray – great for mini foot infections)
Protego herbal powder spray (my favourite product of all time, I use this for minor skin wounds, it’s very effective and smells divine. Yogi, Yssi and Ynca are all prone to getting urine stains on their bottoms so I’ll trim up the stained wool and follow up with a cloud of powder spray to prevent infection and keep their bottoms fresh)
Burgon and Ball hoof trimmers
Fiskars sewing scissors (I find normal sewing scissors easier than full on shearing shears for doing mini trims)
Fiskars scissor sharpeners
Battles maggot oil (just in case)
‘Tom Tick’ (for removing pesky ticks)
Self-stick bandages, cotton wool and Styptic powder (in case of accidents)
Nitrile gloves
Rope halter (in case I need to secure one of the teddies)
Bribes (sheep nuts and / or chopped apples, carrots, turnips depending on what season it is)
I pop my bucket of things on the quad bike, secure with bungees and zoom off to look for the flock. I have various hurdle pens dotted about over our pasture. This means wherever the flock happens to be there’ll hopefully be a pen nearby.
Once parked up I’ll check my list to see whose turn it is, then I’ll walk over to the flock and bring in my first teddy bear.
Once I’ve got my sheep in the pen I’ll give her a piece of apple or a few sheep nuts, then a ‘tickly pickly rubbadubdub’, (some lovely scratches and head rubs). This is important as I like the sheep to associate the pen as a pleasant experience.
Then I get to work. I put a handful of chopped apples / nuts etc in a bucket and place this in one corner. This part is very important as I want to keep my sheep fully occupied while working on her hooves. Where I place the sheep and myself is super important as I want to make sure her body weight is fully supported by the hurdle and me at all times. This way when she’s balancing on three legs she’ll feel secure and and not want to run off in a panic.
When I’ve done the hooves I’ll top up the bribery bucket and start on the bottom. If I’m working on a skittish sheep I’ll halter her up. Sheep instinctively move forwards when their bottoms are touched which isn’t ideal when I’m trying to snip off dags and peer through wool for maggots.
Bottom done, I’ll remove the treats bucket and get to work on the face. Some of our flock don’t need a face trim but most of them do. Ryelands generally have the full on teddy bear look so appreciate a wee trim up around their eyes so they can see properly.
Each sheep takes around half an hour, so after doing four or so sheep I’m pretty sore from all the shuffling around. I’ll load up my things, call the dogs over and head back to the house for a welcome cup of tea.
Shearing is a big day in the sheep calendar and it can be pretty stressful for everyone involved, the sheep, the shearers and the farmers. We start thinking about shearing at the beginning of May when the weather warms up and the sheep start feeling hot and itchy in their woolly coats.
Every spring I contact Guy our shearer to confirm that we’re on his schedule, and then it’s a case of waiting. Unfortunately we can’t just pop a date in the diary because shearing is weather dependent. Guy also has many flocks to dealt with, he goes up and down the country helping smallholders like ourselves and so we have to be patient and wait for a slot.
In the eight weeks or so prior to shearing we step up our ‘fly vigil’ watching for signs of fly strike which can be fatal. Our weekly ‘hooves, bottoms and face trims’ routine becomes more important because the little darlings are at their woolliest. Some of their bottoms can be particularly challenging with all the fresh spring grass and the effects that has.
This year we wondered if we’d ever get our little lot sheared. We’ve had the wettest summer we can remember, and not only that, it’s been chilly too. We regretted turning the aga off in May and have been piling on the jumpers ever since.
Normally our shearer comes in the second half of June or at a push the first week in July. But June came and went with grey skies, wind and rain. This year with the strange weather we knew shearing would probably happen in July, but still, we were getting a bit twitchy as were the sheep.
In theory you can shear sheep in any old weather as long as you keep your flock under cover so the wool is dry. But ideally shearing is best done during a spell of hot, dry weather. The wool should be dry so the blades can run through it easily, and the lanolin should be soft to allow the blades to travel more smoothly. If the temperature’s too low, the lanolin doesn’t soften and the blades can stick which can be a problem as you run the risk of injuring your sheep.
But at last, as we came into the second week of July shearing happened. We had two days of reasonable weather and our shearer Guy was in the area, hooray!
We got the flock down into the shed the night before to make sure they stayed dry and had restricted access to grass. The next day we were up bright and early checking on the flock and making some last minute adjustments to the fancy hurdle arrangement I put in place last month. Then we dragged the shearing platform into position, and last but not least popped some lucozade and snickers bars on the shelf in the barn.
Despite the midges and cleggs who decided to join the party Guy did a sterling job sorting out our flock with their summer haircuts.
We were so happy to have our flock sheared and the sheep definitely had a spring in their step as they trotted back up the hill to their summer pastures.
Round about the beginning of May I started my annual “sheep shed muck-out”. I needed to get it spick and span for shearing in June. The sheep love their shed and spend a lot of time in it during the winter so it can get pretty mucky. They would spend a lot of time in it during the summer too if they got half the chance. Not fans of the hot sun, they seek out shady places, especially in the run-up to shearing when they’re still wearing their winter coats and everyone else is in tee-shirts.
As soon as the grass comes through at the end of April we shut off access to the shed and encourage the little darlings to break their “shed habit”. They grumble for a bit and stand at the fence baa-ing, but after a few days they remember they have other shady places to lurk in such as their very own silvo-pasture.
With the sheep out of the way, I can roll my sleeves up and start mucking out. I’m quite strict with myself and only do an hour a day to save my back.
At first the job seems endless, but after a few days I can see how much progress I’ve made and it’s a great feeling. The hens love it too, they help out, grubbing out little insects and having dust baths in the newly unearthed dusty layer beneath the clods of dung.
This year it took me about three weeks to finish the shed. I lost count of how many trailer loads of dung I lobbed onto the muck heap. The best part was setting up the hurdles ready for shearing which I found hugely fun in a ‘re-arranging the furniture in a room’ kind of a way. After many different hurdle arrangements which had to look right as well be practical, I eventually found a way to divide the shed into three areas. Area 1: multiple sheep waiting room, Area 2: single sheep waiting room, Area 3: shearing zone complete with board.
Now we just have to wait for shearing which is late this year because of the wet weather. Its already July but we have the shearer booked in for Saturday so fingers crossed it stays dry.
It’s been about six weeks since my last blog entry about the wonders of alfalfa and sugar-beet for elderly sheep.
This winter just gone, we’ve been keeping a special eye on three of our more elderly flock members; Sparkle and Scarlett and Shelby. Sparkle and Scarlett are missing some front teeth, and Shelby has arthritis and can’t get around as easily as she used to.
Winter can be tough, especially for older sheep who don’t have the reserves they once had.
We readily admit to spoiling our sheep a little bit, we give them access to their favourite shed to get out of the elements. This is great for the sheep, but not so great for me as I have to muck it out every day. But I digress, a happy sheep is a happy me. As well as their shed, they also have ad-lib access to meadow hay and a cheeky sprinkling of ewe nuts every morning. Despite this, as we came out of winter this year Sparkle, Scarlett and Shelby were all looking a bit too thin for our liking.
Rocket is my middle name so I immediately researched nutritional supplements for elderly sheep with poor teeth and arthritis, preferably slow-release and non-molassed. This is our first experience with keeping OAP sheep so it’s unchartered territory for us.
While I found lots of information on nutritional supplements for elderly horses and ponies, I couldn’t find much at all about elderly sheep. Several cups of tea later I at last found something which looked promising; pelleted meadow grass and pelleted alfalfa with sugar beet.
Fast forward a few weeks and the three ladies are doing marvellously on their special supplement. We are so pleased, particularly with Sparkle as she had lost the most condition out of the three. Now she looks almost back to her old rolly poly self. We’re also very happy that the two ladies with missing incisors are still able to graze grass so this means the pelleted feed is still just a supplement rather than a main meal, at least for the moment. Well done Sparkle, Scarlett and Shelby!
A few years ago we made the decision to stop lambing. Much as we loved having lambs skipping about each spring and doing zoomies around the paddock, we came to the realisation that it just wasn’t financially viable for us. We do miss it from time to time though, lambing with all its highs and lows, it’s a profoundly magical time of year. The miracle of witnessing life unfold, the heartbreak of having it slip through your fingers, it’s an experience you can never forget.
Since we stopped breeding, the number of sheep we have has stayed pretty much the same. The only thing that has changed is how old they are. Some of our girls have reached the ripe old age of twelve which is good going considering the average lifespan of non-commercial sheep is between ten and twelve. Our youngest are now five (which is old in commercial terms) and the rest are somewhere in between.
This winter we had three sheep on our radar, Sparkle, Scarlett and Shelby. We were keeping an eye on them because they’d lost a bit of condition. While it’s normal for sheep to come out of winter looking a bit slimmer than usual, these three were thinner than we liked, particularly Sparkle whose normal physique is erring on the tubby side of tubby.
Both Sparkle and Scarlett are missing some front teeth which would account for them losing a bit of weight. Shelby still has her front teeth but has a touch of arthritis so she finds walking tricky sometimes which means she’s not grazing as much as she ought to be.
Rather than wait for the spring grass to come through and see how they got along, I decided to fast track things a bit. Actually, I was rather concerned about Sparkle as she only has one incisor left (thankfully she still has her molars), but even with lush spring grass coming through, she wouldn’t be able to get as good a nibble at it anymore.
So I did some research and found two products that looked just the ticket; Dengie’s Pure Grass pellets, and Dengie’s Alfa-Beet pellets.
Both the alfa-beet and the grass come in concentrated (pellet) form which you have to soak before use. The advantage which comes with the soaking means that sheep with wobbly teeth should find it easier to eat.
I couldn’t wait to get started. Once I’d whizzed into town to buy what I needed, I hefted the sacks into the kitchen, got three buckets, some scales and a handful of carrots. I carefully measured out 20g of the grass pellets and 20g of the alpha-beet into each bucket. I deliberately went with a very small amount knowing sheep have delicate digestive systems. My plan was to start small and build it up. I then added 10g of ewe-nuts into the mix and a handful of grated carrot. Lastly, I added 200g water. Happy with my concoctions I left the buckets to soak and got on with some overdue housework. Three hours later, I grabbed my coat, the dogs and the buckets and set off in search of the sheep.
On locating the woolly gang, I called the three ladies into a pen and set my buckets down in front of them. I couldn’t wait to enjoy that moment – the sound of sheep enthusiastically scoffing. Sadly the moment never came, they sniffed the buckets with great suspicion, kicked them over for good measure and then looked at me with beseeching ‘feed me’ faces.
I tried hand feeding them but they weren’t having it. Hmm I thought, what to do?
I trudged back to the house and had a cup of tea. I pondered things for a while and decided it would probably be best to contact Dengie’s for advice. I sent them an email explaining my predicament and to my delight a reply came back the very next day. They suggested making the mixture a teeny bit dryer, more ‘wet-crumbly’ than ‘wet-sloppy’. They also suggested adding ewe-nuts which I’d already done, but this time I added a few more. I experimented a bit and came up with what looked to be a good consistency. 20g of alfa-beet, 20g of grass pellets, 20g ewe nuts and 160g water. Three hours later, off I went again with my buckets. This time to my delight, they stuck their heads straight in and scoffed for all they were worth!
This is our first experience with caring for elderly sheep so we’ll be learning as we go along. Fingers crossed with their nutrient-packed supplements all three will blossom and put on weight over the coming weeks. For Sparkle who has only one front teeth left, the pellets will be a lifelong addition to her diet as she will struggle to get adequate grass.
As well as the ‘daily hay ceremony‘ which I wrote about a couple of months ago, I thought I would write a few words about another little ceremony which the sheep really enjoy; the daily ‘nut ceremony’.
Sheep go absolutely bonkers for their nuts. I should add, these are not actual nuts, ‘sheep nuts’ are rolled pellets containing a variety of grains and legumes.
Like the hay, we only do the ‘nut ceremony’ during the winter when the sheep appreciate a little extra nutrition.
First thing every morning I scoop a carefully measured amount into a bucket, then, bucket in one hand, dog leads in the other I call the the dogs and off we go.
Our sheep are really good at telling the time. They come down to the paddock exactly half an hour before I make an appearance and stand in a group looking towards the house.
Then they watch me walking along the fence round the outside of the paddock before moving as one unit to the gate which stands between them and the troughs soon to be filled with ‘nuts’.
I used to fill the troughs while the sheep milled around me but this proved slightly hazardous and required my wits about me, not a great situation to be in before I’ve had my breakfast. Sheep can be quite adept at rugby and thought nothing of tackling me to the ground if it meant they could stick their head in a bucket.
These days I put the troughs in a separate part of the paddock and close the gate before the sheep come down so they can’t get up to tricks. This makes life much easier and is also very amusing to watch when I open the gate and the sheep bundle through closely followed by Elliot who likes to join in the scrum.
Belinda Bibble-Bott (Belinda for short) is one of our big, friendly Orpington hens who came to us as eggs back in the spring of 2022. We’ve seen Belinda and her siblings grow from tiny chicks the size of daisies into enormous hens almost twice the size and weight of our resident flock.
Last spring the Orpingtons started to lay their first eggs. This was a cause for celebration for us! The main reason we wanted to bring younger hens into the flock was because our resident ladies (bless their feathers, being on the elderly side) had all but stopped laying.
At first it took a while for the Orpingtons to work out what the nest boxes were for and quite often we would come across an egg lying in the grass. They also went through a phase of only wanting to lay in one particular nest box. This caused a few scuffles, kerfuffles and broken eggs. But gradually the new girls got the idea, egg production went up and we were able to bake cakes and make omelettes again, hoorah!
But, as is often the way in life, after an up there is a down. One morning in late April as I was scattering corn for the girls, I noticed Belinda’s walk looked ever so slightly off. There was the merest hint of a waddle about her, barely noticeable and could have been easy to dismiss because hens waddle at the best of times. But you learn to be a detective when you run a smallholding, monitoring the behaviour of animals on a daily basis, looking out for things that might be amiss. I didn’t have a good feeling about Belinda and my gut was saying ‘Egg Yolk Peritonitis’ (internal laying). I hoped I was wrong but I had a sinking feeling as I picked her up and checked her over. However, she didn’t have the swelling that hens get with EYP and there was no heat which would have indicated infection, but something still felt off.
I had a think and decided to take her indoors and sit her in a bucket of warm water on the off chance that she was egg-bound. Sometimes first time layers can lay very large eggs which can get stuck and cause discomfort. I handled her carefully as if there was an egg stuck inside her, I didn’t want to break it as this would be fatal. After sitting her ever so gently in a bucket of warm water for 15 mins, I gave her a blow dry and popped her in a darkened cardboard box with plenty of cosy bedding. I had a cup of tea and half an hour or so went by when suddenly I heard a loud ‘post egg cluck’ coming from the cardboard box, Belinda had laid an egg!
My happiness was short lived however. The following day Belinda’s walk was still off. After some thought I decided to go to the vets and get some antibiotics to cover all bases. If she did have EYP there was a chance it could be halted in its tracks if the infection was caught early enough. However it was a slim chance and would only work if the internal laying was a one off.
Off to the vets I whizzed and came back armed with needles and antibiotic. So as not to cause Belinda any discomfort we decided to treat her at night. Hens have a funny way of giving you the eye when you administer injections so I hunted out the little ‘hen hood’ we keep for moments like this. At dusk, we scooped her out of the hen house, placed the hood over her head and popped the needle in.
During that week we gave Belinda her course of antibiotics and kept our fingers crossed. We closely monitored her laying, (a) to see if she was laying eggs on a daily basis which would be a good sign, and (b) to discard any of her eggs because they would contain traces of antibiotic. It broke my heart to throw away her precious eggs but thankfully it would only be for a short period of time.
Sadly Belinda didn’t respond to the antibiotics and over the following weeks her abdomen started to show the tell-tale signs of EYP, it became red and swollen. At this point we made the decision to step back and not give her more antibiotics or go down the hormonal implant route which some vets recommend. Rather we would keep her comfortable and let her live out her life with the other hens without invasive medical procedures.
Belinda surprised us all, she lived through the summer and is still going strong. She’s a spirited lady and despite her condition, is by far not the lowest hen in the pecking order. Usually the smallest or weakest hens get bullied by the hens further up the pecking order, but not Belinda.
During the winter when the hens stopped laying, Belinda’s condition improved slightly but sadly didn’t clear up. Her swelling went down but she still waddled and maintained her ‘penguin stance’. This upright posture has an unfortunate side affect. Orpingtons have extremely long, fluffy feathers and as we came into winter we noticed Belinda’s feathery ‘skirt’ was dragging on the ground and getting wet in all the puddles. So to keep her comfortable and prevent her from catching a chill we decided to give her a wee hair cut.
We brought her into the kitchen and made her comfy on Adrian’s lap while I got to work with the scissors. Belinda relaxed right into the salon experience. So much so that as I worked on her tail feathers she couldn’t help herself and did some reciprocal grooming on Adrian’s arm.
As we come into spring and the hens come into lay again we’ll continue to keep an eye on Belinda, keep her feathers trim and do as much as we can to keep her comfortable.
From the end of October through to the beginning of April (give or take), we move the little darlings onto hay. During the winter, the grass pretty much stops growing and what grass there is isn’t very tasty or nutritious. While many sheep are thrifty and do fine in the leaner winter months, ours are a lowland breed and appreciate their creature comforts. We also have several elderly ladies in our flock who need a little extra tlc.
As well as providing the teddies with daily hay, over the years of keeping sheep we’ve come to realise what our woolly friends really appreciate is having somewhere to get out of the elements, whether that’s the scorching sun in the summer, or the driving rain in the winter. So we give them access to the lambing shed which they love. To be honest, they are rather too fond of it at times and can make a real mess if they set up camp for too long. While we like them to have access to their shelter, we don’t want them to spend all day in there. So we’ve found if we fill up their hay feeders (which are next to the shelter) in the evenings rather than the mornings, this encourages them to go up the hill and forage during the day and only come down to the paddock in the evenings for the daily hay ceremony.
The daily hay ceremony is basically me bringing the little darlings hay every evening. Usually the gang are still up on the hill somewhere, but it’s not long before they make an appearance led by Seline the flock leader. They have an uncanny knack of knowing what time to come down for their tea.
I really enjoy the hay ceremony, mostly because I love the smell of hay. Good quality meadow hay can be hard to come by and our little darlings are particularly fond of soft hay without tough stalks. During the first few years here on our smallholding we struggled to find good meadow hay. Our first year here we made our own but didn’t have enough to last all winter and ended up scrabbling around.
Our second year here we decided to buy in hay. Unfortunately that turned out to be a bad decision as it was the year of the ‘beast from the east’. That winter went on and on and on … there was hardly any hay to be had and we ended up buying in posh, dainty bags of haylage from the local agricultural store. Our winter feed budget took a big hit that year.
So our third winter here we couldn’t believe our luck when we discovered that our Highland Cattle friends from up the road, Jim and Fiona, (https://www.highland.scot/) had started supplying hay! We feel very fortunate about this, it’s taken a big worry off our shoulders.
Every four weeks, Fiona comes by in her ‘hay-mobile’ with a delivery of hay. Whilst tipping bales off the truck we have a good old catch up. As smallholders on somewhat remote farms it’s good to chat to a likeminded soul and compare notes about this and that. I always look forward to Fiona’s visits and I’m sure our sheep do as well!
Back in the summer we decided it would be nice to plant some more apple trees. Over the last few years we’ve been gradually expanding our orchard. There were already about ten apple trees here when we moved here six years ago. Last winter we added some more, and this year we ordered another ten. We’ll have about thirty apple trees eventually which is great because Adrian and I love apples. and Adrian makes a very tasty cider!
At the beginning of November the new trees arrived through the post. Being bare rooted we heeled them into the veggie patch as a temporary home.
Fast forward a few weeks and this week was the grand tree planting ceremony. A wet week was forecast, perfect weather for planting! First we marked out where the trees would go. We carefully positioned ten bamboo canes, taking our time to make sure they were neatly spaced and looked just right. Elliot helped out by following us round and repositioning several canes. After a cup of tea we had to start all over again, this time with the dogs at a safe distance.
Next, Adrian got to work with the tree guards which entailed banging in 40 stobs with his fence post knocker-inner. It was a hard slog getting them in and we now have a large collection of rocks of all shapes and sizes for dry stone wall repairs.
The following day Adrian dug ten large holes for each of the trees. Now we have even more spare rocks for wall repairs. Then it was over to me, I filled my wheelbarrow with several bags of compost, a tub of fertiliser and of course the apple trees. Thankfully they were all alive and well, the roots looked healthy and there were plenty of worms nestled in the root-balls.
Three days later and all ten trees are in their new homes, hoorah! All we have left to do is attach some lengths of stock fence and railings to the posts to keep them safe from the sheep.
As a side note, we have a Himalayan Cedar in a corner of the orchard which the sheep took a great liking too a couple of years ago. (You can see it in the photo on the left). They’d taken several inches of bark all the way round and we thought the poor tree was doomed. In desperation we attached several bridge grafts all the way round and taped moss over the damaged trunk. Two years later and the tree has not only survived but has put on growth and is looking healthy. Even more surprising, none of the bridge grafts are alive so we are not sure how this is possible. The only thing we can think of is that we decided to leave the ‘mossy bandage’ in place (originally we were going to remove it after a few months), perhaps this is helping transport sap up the trunk?