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Easter Surprise

happy lambs

It’s Easter Saturday and I type this in a state of tiredness such that I can hardly think straight. To say I have a new found respect for sheep farmers would be an understatement. There’s a saying in this world that a sheep’s ambition is to die and it spends it’s life looking to do this as fast as possible. It even came up in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series (Granny Aching). I think Terry Pratchett must have known something about sheep!

lambs in field Good Friday
lambs in field on Good Friday

Good Friday started with a miracle. For once, it was sunny and warm (you might think so, but that’s not the miracle). I was sitting at my computer and keeping one eye on the paddock with the lambs. I noticed one of the ewes was chasing our dog, George, all round the field. In case you’re wondering, George is a natural at guarding livestock, it’s what his breed are for. And a George in the field will certainly keep foxes away as well as next door’s dogs.

Anyway, I went down to investigate. The sheep all know George and are highly tolerant of him. This was unusual behaviour. What was even more unusual was that Selene was chasing him. Selene is one of the most serene of our sheep. By then Nicole had joined me and we put George out of the field. The energy was not helped by next door’s yappy mutt barking at the sheep, so I chased it away and turned to see what was what.

Now, you have to understand that we believed Selene was not pregnant. There had been no raddle mark, she had not seemed to fatten up and there were no physical signs. So, when we saw a burst water bag hanging from her behind, we were somewhat puzzled. It took quite a few moments for us to realise that not only was Selene pregnant, but that she was about to give birth.

Selene with Warlock and Witchy
Selene with Warlock and Witchy just after giving birth to them

Now, having been “not pregnant”, Selene had been turned out a while back and so had not had the supplement given to pregnant ewes. Overfeeding sheep nuts helps sheep to achieve their life ambition, so you have to be really careful.
Having not had this supplement, Selene popped out two lambs in quick succession. The lambs were smaller due to the lack of extra feed.

This was our miracle and we were elated.

This is just the beginning of the story.  At first all seemed great.  Selene was super attentive and both lambs were showing a good and strong instinct to feed.  The weather was warm.  All was great.  So we sat and took a moment to enjoy our good fortune.  Given the seemingly immaculate conception and it being Easter, we named them Witchy and Warlock.

Later that day, Nicole noticed that Witchy was looking a bit lethargic.  We took her inside.  She would not feed.  In fact, she showed a remarkable lack of will to live (see sheep’s life ambition above).  Well, we had already lost Wicca earlier in the week to an infection (Watery Mouth).  This had affected us both deeply.  We did not want to lose another one.

Nevertheless, despite multiple tube feeds, lamb pick me up and life aid being administered, Witchy continued to remain lethargic.  All through the night Nicole nursed her.  I have to say I am in awe of Nicole.  I was so tired I stayed in bed.  I was awake and ready to help, but Nicole never asked.  I don’t know how she did it.  At 5am, I told her I’d take over and left her to sleep.

Witchy was hanging in there, but at best I was giving here 50/50.

lambs in shed during storm
lambs in shed during storm

Of course, a storm was approaching so we had decided to bring the lambs into the shed.  That caused something of an uproar in the flock.  Nicole had been halter training them, but they knew was something was up and did all they could not to become ensnared.  However, one by one, Nicole dragged them in from the field while I ran ahead my arms full of wriggling lambs.  One ewe lost the plot and it took ages before we managed to lead her in; by placing her lamb in front of her nose.

Of course, once in the shed, they realised they were out of the crap weather and they were so happy.  In fact, the atmosphere in there today has been really great.

Adrian warming Warlock
Adrian warming Warlock

Except in one corner where Selene lay with Warlock (Witchy was still inside with us).  Selene was ill.  Having not fed her up, we had overcompensated and given her too many sheep nuts (they need the nuts to hep milk production).  Now she had tummy ache.  This is life threatening for sheep (see sheep’s life ambition above).  Nicole rang the vet and the vet talked her through a plan of action.  Life aid (basically electrolytes) was administered and painkillers and antibiotics injected.  In the meantime, Warlock was now cold and so he came in for a warm up.  I may not be great at staying up all night, but I can warm a lamb up quickly as I generate a lot of heat (we have an emergency lamb warming box, but I prefer the body heat method).

To our huge relief, Selene recovered quickly and they were soon reunited.

In the meantime, Witchy slowly seems to be improving.  She is still reluctant to feed, but is taking some in.  We keep telling her she must drink or it will be the tube, but she doesn’t listen.  Thankfully, she’s taking in around 50ml a feed and she needs around 100ml every 4 hours, so there’s hope yet.

I never thought lambing could be this hard!

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Lambing Update

Bluemli and Wart just born

I can’t believe how tough lambing is turning out to be.  We have been doing 4 hourly checks for what seems like forever, but is in fact just 3 or 4 weeks.  On top of that, every ewe that has lambed so far has presented with problems of one sort or another.  Mainly, they just can’t seem to get the poor wee lambs out.

We have had amazing support from our friends who have come over at each birth and helped rescue the situation.  Of the 7 ewes that were expecting, 4 have now produced lambs.

Bluemli and Wart day one
Bluemli and Wart day one

Our best surprise was Bluemli.  She’s our youngest and is a first time mum.  We were expecting problems (you can do just a little too much reading you know).  Well, last night she did have trouble squeezing her lamb out, but with a little help, out popped a very cute ram lamb.  And Bluemli was licking it straight away, the first of our ewes to do so.  In fact, she’s besotted with her little lamb and talks to it constantly.  Having learned that this year, the RFBS deems names to start with ‘W’, we have named him Wart.  And this is not after those annoying little growths we sometimes get.  It’s after the nickname given to the the young King Arthur (before he was king) in T.H. White’s classic novel.

The best part of this is that we had Bluemli’s due date completely wrong, sometime in mid April).  Crafty Ginge, the ram, had obviously managed to have his way without leaving a mark a bit earlier than we had realised.

Sky and Winnie
Sky and Winnie

And then today, around lunchtime, Sky went into labour.  Now, Sky had been behaving a little strangely and truth be told, I had a strange feeling all was not well. She had been headbutting Bluemli while Bluemli was giving birth and then seemed fixated with her lamb – we had to put her in a pen  for a while.  Sadly, my fears turned out to be true.  The first lamb was still born and it seemed he had been dead before she went into labour.  We suspect that Sky was aware of this and hence the odd behaviour.

Thankfully, she was having twins and out popped a beautiful baby ewe lamb.  She has been named Winifred (after Nicole’s aunt) and is already Winnie (for short).

In the meantime we discovered a great device for feeding our orphan lambs.  As they grow, they are getting more and more frantic at feeds.  We now have a rack into which we can put their bottles and they can help themselves as and when they like.  Of course, the first attempt didn’t go too well, not helped by my not hanging it correctly and Larry (or wlarry as must his name must start with ‘W’ :)) kept butting it.  But, this evening they have got the hang of it and are starting to take smaller feeds on demand which is just great.

larry and lisa with bottle rack
larry and lisa with bottle rack
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More Little Lambs

Florence with Shelby and Camille

After the introduction to the deep end of lambing on Thursday, we spent Saturday waiting for Shelby to give birth.  We were hopeful it would not be a repeat of Thursday.  I mean, we love hand rearing the first two, but ideally they should be raised by their mother.

Well, around 7pm Nicole spotted that Shelby was in trouble.  We called a friend who also breeds coloured ryelands and asked for advice.  He had been quite “vocal” in telling us not to ring the vet if there was a problem, but to ring him.  Despite having 22 ewes of his own, he and his wife came round to help.  If Scarlett’s experience was traumatic, then I don’t really know what word to use to describe what Shelby went through.  Her cervix was even tighter.

Camille Shelby FlorenceIt took some effort to get the first lamb out.  And then, well over an hour, nearer two, to bring out the second.  Working in such a tight, constricted and slippery place, it was proving almost impossible to get both front legs and head lined up correctly.  But he carried on and with the help of Nicole and some baler twine, finally we had number two.

To be honest, I couldn’t believe she was alive, but she was.  The best part of it all was the totally calm atmosphere throughout.  Shelby didn’t struggle, she just lay there as if she knew we were helping.  The other sheep kept a respectful distance.  Both lambs were presented to Shelby and despite being exhausted, and sore I bet, she immediately bonded with them.

But, she was so was so exhausted she just lay down.  We constructed a pen around her and the lambs where she lay so as she would not have to move.  Then we withdrew and left them in peace for an hour.  In the meantime, I drove over to our friend’s house to get some antibiotics and a decent syringe.  We have a huge lambing kit, but we had no antibiotics – typical!  When I got back, we gave Shelby a jab.  I say we, but Nicole actually did the injection, she is much braver than me.

Then we checked the lambs and decided to give them some feed by bottle.  We were able to milk Shelby to get some of her colostrum and then topped it up with some we made up.  Bottle feeding newly born lambs is not that easy, they don’t expect a rubber teat!  One of them just wouldn’t even try.  I popped her under my jacket and Nicole warmed up some towels on the aga.  Soon, she warmed up and began to wriggle and we were able to feed her too.  Then, once again we were up every two hours checking and giving them supplementary feed.  We were also really worried about Shelby.

Nicole Shelby Camille and Florence
Nicole with the newborn lambs and Shelby

But, the good news is that all three survived their ordeal and seem in good health.  Nicole has been training the young lambs (Camille and Florence) to use their mother’s teats to feed.  And they are learning, though still getting the odd top up.  And Shelby is proving to be a wonderful mother, she’s a joy to watch.

So today, being a lovely sunny day, we turned them out into the paddock.  The other ewes were curious and Peaches seemed a little put out and tried to head butt one of them (we couldn’t tell which one as they are virtually identical).  Before Shelby could intervene, the young lamb went head to head with Peaches and sent her scurrying backwards.

Checking later, they are all happy in the spring sunshine.

And Larry and Lisa continue to grow stronger every day.  I have taken a bit of time off work so will build them an outdoor pen in the paddock tomorrow so they can be outside among the others but safe.  Of course, we’ll be bringing them in at night into their luxury indoor bed :).

Camille Shelby Florence

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Our First Lambs

coloured ryeland lambs

We have been on lamb alert for almost two weeks now.  We started 4 hourly checks  a week before we thought the first ones were due.  They finally arrived 6 days after the due date, on Thursday evening.  It was, however, not plain sailing.

lambs lisa and larry in field for first timeIn our first year of lambing, we have done everything we can to learn as much as we can about what we need to do.  Nicole has researched all the ins and outs and prepared laminated sheets and instructions.  We have both been out making sure everything was ready, lambing shed, pasture, emergency heating box and so on.  I only just finished the emergency heating box Thursday afternoon.

Later that Thursday, as I headed out to one of my Maths students, Scarlett’s waters broke.  Nicole had it all under control, so I headed off, after all I was only away for an hour or so.  When I got back, nothing had happened and the vet had been called.

larry in dogs bedsIt turned out that Scarlett had a very tight cervix and this was stopping the lambs from coming.  The vet duly delivered both lambs, but in the process, the whole bonding process was shattered.  And so, Scarlett would not accept her lambs.  The vet just shrugged and disappeared, but we kept watch.  An hour later with the lambs not getting any feed and just being pushed away, we tried to help.  We managed to get both to suckle for a short period, but Scarlett just would not accept them.

We took them indoors, made some emergency colostrum and bottle fed them.  We felt it was too risky to leave them with Scarlett, there was every chance she might accidentally crush them.  So we set up a pen in the living room, found a comfy quilt, turned on the under floor heating and set our alarm clocks for 2 hour intervals.  I was on 11pm, 1am and 5am bottle feeding duty!

adrian and lisa in fieldWell, today, still not yet 2 whole days old, the lambs are prospering.  We tried many times to repair their bond with Scarlett but in the end we have decided to hand rear them.  And we have both bonded with them rather strongly it should be said.  They are a little ewe and a little ram, called Lisa and Larry respectively.

Today we built them safe quarters in the lambing shed where we will put them in daylight hours – it will be good for them to be among the sheep.  We also took them for a walk in the paddock.  Like all living creatures, they love the outdoors and need to feel the sun on their backs.  We had a lovely time and they were already skipping about.

Then after the 5 o’clock feed, we all fell asleep on the couch, myself and Nicole each with a sleeping lamb on our chests.  It really is quite magical.

Adrian with Lisa and Larry

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Busy getting ready for lambing

new apple trees

Both myself and Mrs D have worked non stop this weekend.  A lot of our motivation is to get everything ready for our lambs which should start appearing around Friday.  The sheep are already in the lambing shed, so that’s all done.  This weekend was all about getting the outside areas ready for when we turn them out.

new hedgeFollowing a recent robbery, we decided to put a hedge at the bottom of our field.  As well as making it hard to get in (it’s all thorny bushes) this would have the added benefit of blocking the view of our field from the road.  However, sheep are very partial to thorny bushes, so with the sheep indoors, now was the perfect time to plant the hedge and fence it off.  It was only about 35m, but still a lot of plants (83 in total).

On top of that, there were 25 apple trees waiting to be planted.  Being bare root, they had to go in soon.  These trees were going in the orchard and as this is also used for grazing, had to be fitted with tree guards,  Rather than buy hugely expensive ones, I fashioned some out of some galvanised wire mesh.  Those jobs kept me occupied!

dog proof fenceMrs D had already cleaned up the field and was now working on securing the fence.  Sadly, our neighbour has three rather aggressive border terriers.  They truly are bad cases of “small dog syndrome”.  The last thing we want is for them to take an interest in the lambs and try to get into the field.  Which, truth be told, is quite possible, dogs being dogs.  So Mrs D has been on her knees making sure any rabbit scrapings or gaps under the fence are well and truly blocked.

And in between, we found a small dunnock lying on the ground.  So that was duly nursed back to health.

Still, nearly there, preparation for lambs is looking good.

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Countdown to Lambing

sheep in lambing shed

As the ghastly winter rolls on towards spring, lambing time is fast approaching.  Our first lambs are due on 4th of March (give or take).  But the weather presented us with a dilemma.

Sheep like it outside.  But they, like the rest of us, can get a bit tired of the wet, especially if it gets through their fleece and onto their skin.  Generally, sheep are brought into the lambing shed about 2 weeks before the first lambs are due.  But we were not sure whether to bring them in early due to the constant rain.  If we brought them in too early, might they get bored?

trapped by sheepSheep are delicate creatures at the best of times, so any stress this close to lambing can be a bad thing.  Sadly, our hand was forced when one of the ewes miscarried about 4 weeks before she was due.  The vet suggested we could bring them in at nights until closer to lambing.

So, it was rubber gloves on, disinfectant solution prepared and the shed got a thorough clean.  Once it had dried, we put down a thick bed of straw and set up the hay feeders.  We brought them in early and they were ever so happy.  Dry feet (the paddock was very wet and muddy in places), out of the wind and rain and a plentiful supply of food and water.

Then, a quick trip to the local Agricentre for a trough for their high protein pre lambing nuts and we were all set.

And now, they are happy as larry in their shed and getting lots of attention.  Mind you, at nuts feeding time, it can turn into something of a scrum (see the picture!) as you try to spread the nuts into the trough.  They like their sheep nuts!

And for us, it’s fingers crossed that things will go well from here.

sheep eating sheep nuts with Adrian

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Tupping update

Ginger-coloured-ryeland-ram-relaxes

Ginger, the coloured ryeland ram we have borrowed, has been with us for three weeks now.  He was fitted with a raddle and yellow crayon so that we could see which ewes he has been with.  Once the yellow patch appeared on the back, we noted the name of the ewe and the date as this will tell us when she is likely to lamb.

changing-crayonI had read that the ewes can synchronise themselves so they come into season at roughly the same time.  Well, our ewes haven’t read that book and over the past three weeks, you couldn’t have spaced them out more unevenly.  And even now, we are not sure they have all come into season as four remain unmarked.  Mind you, yellow doesn’t stand out too well on dark brown wool.

Normally, ewes come into season every 17 days or so, so today we changed the crayon to a blue one.  Luckily, Ginger is a cool dude and likes being handled.  He’s also quite patient (unlike those born under the sign of the ram hehe). I don’t know if it was the new colour, the cooler weather or some other influence, but we got back from a dog walk to find one of the reluctant four had a lovely blue mark on her back.

ginger-and-ewesJust three to go, the three youngest as it happens.  Maybe they are a bit wary given it’s their first time.  Or maybe Ginger just doesn’t fancy the slimmer ewe.  If anything, he still seems more interested in the grannies.

The trials and tribulations of tupping.

In the meantime, we did some thinking ahead and realised we might have more ewes than space for lambing.  We were going to use the stable and have been steadily decluttering it.  But it’s not that big.  So, the tractor shed now has a nice new concrete floor.  And boy, that was hard work.  Almost as hard as shearing :).

Thanks to Westcrete for mixing and delivering two tons of concrete, then it was up to me to level it.  I have only ever laid the base for a small shed, so this was a big ask.  And it was made harder by the fact that there are walls on three sides and our well in one corner so movement was restricted. And the well is our water supply so we couldn’t exactly concrete that over, hence the little wall I built round it round it first.

And of course, there’s a deadline as concrete sets, quickly!

But I got there and we are thrilled with our new lambing space.

lambing floor

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Tupping Time is Here

Ginger-the-coloured-ryeland-ram-gets-friendly

Today is tupping day.  What that means is that we have collected a ram (called Ginger) that we are borrowing for the next few weeks.  Ginger has been carefully selected to ensure we have good lines (of breeding).  Coloured Ryelands are not rare, but they are not common either.  They did, in fact, used to be classed as a rare breed.  The upshot is there are not many that are not related to each other in some way.  So find an unrelated ram is a delicate task.

Fortunately, a breeder local to us has entirely different lines to ours and Ginger is the furthest removed.

So, today we collginger-coloured-ryeland-ramected Ginger who, for a ram not far from a field full of ewes, seemed remarkably calm.  He was easily led into the trailer.

A careful driver home and we were ready to deliver him to our flock.  We drove into the field as we thought that as soon as he smelled the ewes, the calmness would evaporate.  And we were right, he was Mr Impatient as we opened the trailer.

The ewes were also curious and trundled over to see what was going on.

ginger-coloured-ryeland-ram-runs-to-ewesWe opened the trailer and he shot out and straight over to the ewes, nose in the air and tongue hanging out.  It was a combination of male excitement and female curiousity as they met for the first time.  All the ewes seemed happy to see him, until he started focusing his attention on those he thought closest to being in heat.

This led to some “games” of chase and some half hearted mounting.  But, it would seem none of the ewes were particularly receptive, and Ginger soon gave up and started eating some grass.

We will be checking for yellow stains on the back of the ewes over the coming days to see who the ram has found ready and willing and so enable us to calculate the date the lambs will appear.

And this week, two tons of concrete arrive and I will be spreading and levelling that to make the floor of our lambing shed.

ginger-coloured-ryeland-ram-gets-going

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Hay causes sheep rumpus

sheep-and-hay

With autumn approaching faster than we’d like and the grass losing its nutriemts, it was time to put some hay in the field.  There’s plenty of grass (thanks to the recent rain), so I thought the sheep would most likely ignore the hay for now.

Not exactly.

On seeing the wheelbarrow with 2 bales of hay trundling across the field, they were over straight away and pulling hay out even as the barrow was moving.  We put one bale in the large aluminium feeder and all the sheep crowded round.

We put another bale in the other feeder (which is the other side of the field) and turned tound to watch.  Well, there’s not quite enough room for 11 sheep to all feed at once, so we had a bit of a rumpus with much headbutting, nudging, shoving and general scrapping for space.

At last, one of the sheep (Selene) noticed we had a second feeder and come running over.  Clever girl, she had a feeder all to herself while the others jostled.

Soon, the others noticed and before long, there were 4 on one feeder, 7 on the other and plenty of space to go round.

Still with the odd bit of headbutting, though it always stopped whenever I pointed the camera in their direction.

But they are happy, and that’s what matters.

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Sheep moved to new field

bluemli coloured ryeland sheep in new field

Last year, we purchased a field around 3.25 acres in size.  We planted about an acre or so of natural woodland and a blackthorn hedge down one side.

The rest remains as orchard and meadow. Now that we have 11 sheep, our original field is a little small and so the grass was getting shorter and shorter, and shorter.

We had to act. We put in a new stock fence. The existing one was just a couple of strips of barbed wire, OK for cows but easy for sheep to get past. We mowed the meadow so as to get young, sweet grass growing and we cleared away all the hawthorn hedge trimmings. We cleaned up the water trough which looked as though it had been stagnant for centuries.  We also installed an electric fence to protect the young hedge (they do like a bit of bark, our sheep) and tested that it worked (ouch – it does!)  We also spread 5 tons of hard core under the gate as it was high off the ground and we want to keep the sheep in and dogs out (except our own, of course).

helma coloured ryeland in new fieldThen, yesterday evening, we gathered them and sprayed them to protect them from fly strike.  Then we attempted to herd them again, but this time they were less keen to be gathered.  Nevertheless, we eventually rounded them up and loaded the first batch of 5 into the trailer.  This took a bit longer than it should have as they are nippy and strong and somewhat reluctant to go into the trailer.

Now, the field may only be 3 or 4 hundred yards away so you’d think it might be easier just to walk them along the road.  Well, with three roads, two gates and a playing field entrance to pass not forgetting our questionable herding abilities, the trailer seemed the easier option.

We took the first 5 up to the new field and let them out. Normally, when split, there’s a lot of bleating goes on.  But our 5 trotted out of the trailer, took one look around and almost skipped into the field.  5 heads were down investigated all this new grass.  Not a single ‘meh’ to be heard!

So, we nipped back for the other 6.  We set up the trailer, funnelled them into the race and they trotted up into the trailer without any intervention.  It was as though they already knew where they were going and couldn’t wait. Perhaps the others had sent a sheepmail, not as silly as it sounds because I have read many stories about animals communicating at a distance.

We drove them the short journey to the field.  They, too, were delighted with their new pasture and all 11 settled in really quickly.  They are really happy and this makes us happy.

coloured ryeland flock new field