The field shelter we built for our sheep has proved very popular with them. They especially like it when they seek out shade. We are planning to plant some trees to provide more shady area for them in the summer, but for now the shelter works well.
However, in the winter it can get a bit wet here. And the patter of multiple sheep hooves can soon turn wet ground into mud. So, we had a conference and decided that what was needed was a patio. It was also suggested that redirecting the water from the roof away would help.
So, multiple slabs were transported. And I mean a lot. Fortunately, I had help from Matt, my brother-in-law. for most of them. To be honest, we didn’t lay a flat base, we just put them down on the ground. That said, we did ensure they sloped away from the shelter itself. The hay feeders also have slabs on both sides. We have, in the past, tried hard standing, but that just gets trampled in. Slabs are a better bet.
I also installed guttering all around the roof so as to catch all the water. I also installed a water trough and tank and an underground pipe to take all the extra water well away into the woodlands.
This means that in the worst of the weather, the sheep will be able to reach food and water without getting their feet wet. This is especially important, as it turns out, as some of our sheep are becoming senior citizens and one, poor Sarka, has developed arthritis. She’s getting supplements to help, but being able to reach food and water without having to wade through mud will be a great help to her.
Sarka went lame over the weekend appearing to lose all movement in one of her back legs (you can read more details here). She had pretty much continuous TLC from us both and, fortunately, Saturday night excepted (when we carried her and put her into shelter), the weather has been OK.
sarka having a drink
Well, on Monday morning, it was my turn to sit with her and she was eating and drinking, but not much. To be honest, she didn’t seem any better so, I phoned the vet. He felt it would be a good idea to check her out, so we booked in a visit.
The good news is that there was no sign of any injury, for example break or dislocation. It seemed like, as we had thought, she had hurt it, perhaps stumbling or falling awkwardly. So, a quick painkiller injection was administered.
That helped a lot and over the day, she improved a lot. This morning, she was up and about and Nicole was even able to lead her down to the main field shelter. She’s much better off there with hay and water on hand, shelter and plenty of hard standing.
We’ll be administering painkillers for the rest of the week (every 48 hours) and see how she does. Fingers crossed.
Aside from their lovely natures, one of the benefits of coloured ryeland sheep is that they produce amazing wool. We have been getting ours spun into yarn and Nicole sells it through her Etsy shop.
As well as the wool, Nicole is now making ponchos from our wool, super soft, lace weight knit, un-dyed, organic and non-scratchy!
If you are interested in treating yourself to one of these, please let us know via our contact page. Thanks.
Sarka has been with us for a few years now. She has always been a bit nervous but Sarka and Nicole have a very close friendship. I think she quite likes me too!
As it turns out, she has a heart condition. This means that if she gets anxious, she can get into quite a panicky state with racing heartbeats and shallow breaths. Last year, the vet’s prognosis wasn’t good. However, straight after that vet’s visit, she started to improve and has, basically, since then been quite a healthy sheep.
Sadly, recently, she she seems to have developed arthritis in one of her front legs making it a bit difficult for her to walk. The vet said nothing could be done. Nicole wasn’t having that and after some research, found that willow is a favourite of sheep and has painkiller properties. Well, we have plenty of willow here. And it worked, she became more mobile and seemed pretty happy. Just a clicking sound when she walks, but the vet assured us that was nothing to be worried about. We had to take quite a lot of willow in because the rest of the flock tucked in with gusto as well.
With autumn and the leaves dropping, we have switched to willow supplements.
Anyway, in the last couple of days she has developed a problem with one of her hind legs. We can’t tell if she’s twisted it or whether the arthritis has spread. It coincided with the rain on Thursday so she could easily have slipped.
We have been quite lucky with the weather recently, cold but bright. That is the sheeps’ favourite. However, today winter conditions arrived with a vengeance – driving heavy rain, and 50mph winds. The sort of rain that soaks through waterproofs in about 10 minutes.
On the morning inspection, Nicole found Sarka right up the hill. On the picture to the right, trace the wall up past the copse and she was up there. In fact, Sarka was about as far away from the main field shelter as she could get! Nicole took some food up; hedge stuff (which Sarka really likes), veggie garden produce, willow and haylage (also very popular).
Of course, at this point, I was reading the news on the computer. However, with Nicole being out for a while, my brain cells started to work and I thought I should go and check everything was OK. I found Nicole filling the hay feeders with hay, much to the sheeps’ delight. Sarka, however, was up the hill and so we returned to check on her.
Sarka warm and dry in pig arc while rain lashes down
To me, she seemed OK, but also a bit out of sorts. My intuition was telling me we needed to get her out of the rain. But how? We couldn’t exactly put her on the quad bike and she certainly wasn’t able to walk anywhere. Thankfully, we have a pig arc up in that field (you can’t see it in the photo, but it’s over to the right). It was a fair way from Sarka (about 50m or so) but it was downhill. On impulse, I started to lift her. Now, your average sheep weighs around 80kg so this was easier said than done. I needed Nicole’s help to get up on my feet, but I had her and set off I set as fast as I could. The ground was tricky – sedge grass, puddles, soft bits – we had to be careful.
Sarka was heavy and my arms tired quickly (I was carrying her in what I call a “dog lift”, my arms wrapped around her legs). Every few steps, I had to stop and let Nicole take the weight for a few seconds. As I neared the pig arc, I could feel Sarka starting to roll off me, but Nicole answered my panicky cries and between us, we got her into the pig arc.
Nicole had already filled it with fresh straw, so it was very warm and dry. We are so relieved and will be looking after her carefully.
After the rather long cold and wet winter, we have to say we are quite enjoying having a bit of decent summer weather. The midges can be a pain on a still summer evening, but they are a small price to pay for the fun of being able to have lunch in the garden.
All the animals seem pretty content. Having been sheared, the sheep are not at risk of overheating. Plus, they are in a field with some tress providing shade. They hate the midges though. Nothing seems to phase the cows. Their new “river” field isn’t quite ready yet, the bracken proving somewhat tenacious.
flowers front of house
That doesn’t mean we have had much time to be sitting about. Nicole has got the bee in her bonnet about sorting out the garden. She has been working hard, furiously pulling out weeds and planting flowers. The main focus has been around the front of the house and the area leading up to it.
Bit by bit, “inappropriate” planting is being replaced by sympathetic flowers and so on. Being a professional gardener, she knows what she’s doing and it’s all starting to look really good.
One of two sheep poo piles
While Nicole has been gardening away, I was dispatched to clear out the second sheep field shelter. As I mentioned before, a year’s worth of straw and poo has been compacted. Nicole’s back has been giving her trouble, so I was on my own this time. It was hard work not helped by the fact that the shelter is about 5 feet high and I’m 6 foot 1! That pretty much did for me last weekend (but one).
newly laid track
Of course, having got it out, I still had to move it to our designated dung heap. But that’s what tractors are for. I still had to load the tractor using a fork, but it was then just a wee drive and the front loader did the rest. I combined this job with laying a track. It’s our main route from the house and outbuildings to the paddock and it gets very muddy in winter. Finally, it has been dry long enough for it to have dried out properly. So it was shift a pile of hard standing (using the tractor) one way, rake it, continue over and collect a load of manure, take that back, repeat.
new flower bed – mulched
This was duly delivered to Nicole’s newly cleared flower beds.
That was Saturday.
Sunday was general maintenance, moving a water trough and repairing the roof on hay bay which had collapsed under the snow. It was baking on Sunday and I got a proper “farmer’s” tan on my arms.
It’s sometimes hard, with all these things to do, to take a moment and look around. But I did today and our fields are turning into lovely meadows. It’s what you get when you mix cows and sheep on pasture. It’s what you get farming the old fashioned way. Not to mention a bit of sun and rain of which we have had plenty.
meadow
meadow flowers
Also, there was a nice sound of buzzing, lots of bees going about their work. And they need all the help they can get these days.
Anyway, though it’s a sunny evening outside, I might just watch a bit of the football now, maybe the Spain game.
Where to start! We are finding out that owning land creates lots of work. Owning animals just adds more! We keep thinking we are getting there, but then we dream up new projects.
veggie patch complete
One example is the veggie patch already featured on this blog. It’s pretty much finished now. I added the rose arches over the gates as the final touches. No roses yet, they’ll go in in the autumn. Nicole has been busy planting it up. I keep saying I’ll help but I always seem to end up working on some other project. It’s starting to look fab with good crops of turnips, carrots, parsnips and sprouts. We’ll also have kale, courgettes and beetroot. They were sown direct and are not quite showing yet. All this planting was helped by two thunderstorms which gave everything a good soaking. More about water later.
rows of onions and salad
Nicole has also been busy moving self seeded daisies out of the other veggie patch and into the borders next to the new veggie patch. So, soon, it will be surrounded with flowers. All that planting created the room for all our onions which Nicole finished planting today. We even did a bit of a landscaping (after yesterday’s storm) but the midges soon put a stop to that.
So, what have I been up to that has stopped me from helping? Well, the weather went from wet to dry overnight, and stayed dry. This is great, except that the grass growth was slow and our field water dried up, Annoyingly, the big tank we put in last year has sprung a leak somewhere and I think I am going to have to dig a hole to find it, a big hole.
Anyway, we have two rivers that are merrily running through our patch. So I suggested we extend one of the paddocks down to include a bit of river. The cows would certainly appreciate that!
So I have been off doing that, knocking in posts and fencing it all. The fencing is now all done but there are two stone dykes that need some repair where they have fallen down. If our sheep got to those, they’d be up and over in a flash. I think the cows would probably give it a miss though. So I’ll be repairing those later in the week.
It’s also infested with bracken which is poisonous to cows and sheep. So we’ll be down dealing with that too!
Talking of cows escaping, coming back from the garage one day last week (my new car had some faults needing fixing), I realised that one of the cows was the wrong side of the fence. In fact, Bluebell had taken down a bit of fencing and we reckon she’d been out for a day or two. We headed down to round her up wondering how it would go. Highland cows are pretty stubborn at the best of time. However, she was waiting by the gate. When Nicole opened it, she wandered back in of her own accord. Miracle!
In between all that, we had the sheep sheared on Thursday last. You may remember that Nicole and I did a sheep shearing course a couple of years back. Well that and the experience of shearing three sheep made us decide this was best left to the professionals. Finding shearers for small flocks can be a problem, but this year, on a recommendation, we managed to hire a top shearer.
They arrived with a professional rig on a trailer with two shearing stations and two shearers and a third person to roll up the fleeces. Our plans of leading the ewes in one at a time from the paddock evaporated in an instant. In fact, we ended up charging around and catching and rounding them up. We only just kept up with the two shearers but, of course, we then had to collect the sheared sheep and get them back. It was borderline panic for the duration, but they are all sheared, and it was a great job too. The sheep must feel so much better in this heat.
After that, we had to inoculate the lambs. Rather than rounding them up, we caught them one at a time. Nicole gave them the injection while I held them. The girls struggled like mad doing their best to headbutt me (by flipping their heads backwards). The boys, harder to catch, seemed only to shrug with vague indifference when the needle went in. Some of the lambs were very flighty – once they know you’re after them, they can move out of the way pretty quickly. Nicole’s pretty good at sneaking up behind them and catching their legs. One managed to wriggle out and tried to run past me. I’m not quite sure how I did it but a stuck an arm out and caught him and quickly had him in a hug. Which would have been great had I not, in my moment of self satisfaction, then stepped on some sheep poo ( we were on a hillside) and slid landing flat on my back. I held onto the lamb though, who was safe on my chest. We have to do it again in four weeks, perhaps we’ll pen them up. They might be a bit heavy to carry by then.
Nicole is on top of the sheep worming. We don’t blanket worm them. Nicole collects samples and we have the vet do an analysis so we know who to worm and what to treat them with. There are a few dirty sheep bottoms out there, often a sign of worms, and one of Nicole’s less exciting jobs is keeping their rear ends shaved (it’s called dagging) so that we can avoid fly strike.
In-between all that, we have been trying to comb the cows. They haven’t had much attention of late and Bluebell is not entirely sure about being combed. This is not helped by them moulting their winter coats which creates humungous knots. They are hard to get out, but amazingly satisfying when you get one.
And if that’s not enough, some of the chickens got infested with lice. So, we had to catch them and Nicole cut all the eggs off and we treated them to kill the adult lice. Sounds easy, but catching chickens is incredibly hard! You can wait till night time and get them out the chicken house – they tend to be quieter then. Bu these days, in mid June, that would be around midnight and we are fast asleep by then.
And tomorrow it’s Monday and back to the day jobs! We’re still waiting for that elusive day off! I haven’t even had time to take pictures of our sheared sheep or new paddock, but I’ll try and get some tomorrow and add them.
Having got our veggie patch built, our thoughts turned to mulch. We have compost bins but, to be honest, by the time it has all rotted down it doesn’t go that far. Happily, our sheep provided the answer.
Last year I built them a field shelter. It is heavily used by the sheep, especially when it rains, snows or even when it’s sunny for the shade. Well, it seems to pretty much have been raining since last June and we certainly had plenty of snow over the winter. So, Brookside (as we call the field shelter) has been well used in the last year.
Now, sheep, while great, do have one or two not so pleasant habits. One of these is the tendency to poo wherever they happen to be. Even when sleeping. I sometimes wonder whether they even bother to wake up. In fact, you can tell where the sheep have slept because there is a gentle imprint in the grass and a pile of poo.
This is fine outside where sun and rain and even the dogs, who are partial to a bit of sheep poo, do their bit to dispose of it. But in Brookside, the poo tended to linger. So, Nicole dutifully lays down straw to keep things nice and clean. However, unlike with horses, we haven’t mucked out. Yet.
Time to muck it out and spread it on the new veggie patch we thought. So while I was hanging the gates, Nicole headed off and duly returned with a trailer full of mulch. We spread this. If you have ever mulched, you will know how this went – a trailer full covers a postage stamp sized area! After two loads, Nicole was starting to tell me how hard it was. I went over to help (the gates having been hung).
the poo face
Well, a year of poo, straw and trampling had built up a layer about a foot deep that was quite intent on staying exactly where it was. Also, the shelter is about 5 feet high so it was bending over work and lots of banging heads.
Not one to complain (ha ha), I got stuck in on the excavation, or mining as Nicole liked to call it. As I lobbed piles of strawey poo out through the doorway, Nicole moved it into the trailer. Then, back over we went to spread it out. We managed to cover two of our 6 veggie areas before seeking refuge in a bottle. Well, we went to the pub actually where I had fish and chips and Nicole munched her way through two helpings of lasagna.
Next day, we used the tractor instead of the trailer. We could drop the front loader much lower making it easier to load at one end. At offload end, I could set it to wheelbarrow height which also made things much easier. I don’t quite know how she did it, but Nicole mined the mulch out from Brookside faster than I could collect and spread it. By the end of the day, one of the sheds (there are two) was clear and the veggie patch covered in a thick layer. It looks great.
The only downside is that we have to do it all again in the other shed. We are already thinking up strategies for the coming season which involve a more regular mucking out. But, at least we are putting all this poo to good use. It’s quite a good feeling really. We celebrated with a take away pizza (neither us having enough energy left to cook).
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.
Yalena Yassoo and Ursi
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.
Vi Yara and Yana
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 and Yogi
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.
lamb first steps
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!
lambs newly born
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.
lambs making themselves comfortable
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.
Sheep in lambing paddock
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.
Vi relaxing in lamb paddock
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.
lambing shed posts started
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!
all posts in
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.
I also installed guttering all around the roof so as to catch all the water. I also installed a water trough and tank and an underground pipe to take all the extra water well away into the woodlands.
