Auchenstroan Wool

It has been a while since I have had the energy to write anything in this blog.  In that time, our lambs have grown and grown.

Since our last post, we have sheared the sheep (well, we had help, but next year we plan to shear them ourselves again).  We have been looking after our flock and dealing with outbreaks of various things sheep get.  Whisky even got a ride home in a bicycle basket when he fell ill.  But a wee antibiotic jab and a morning in front of the fire soon had him up and raring to go again.

And we have built another paddock, a small one, to help with winter grazing.  We’ve run drainage pipes under it as it can get a bit wet here.

Last week, at this time, we had 21 sheep out in our field.  Morning and evening feeds were tricky as we were surrounded by excited lambs all gathering round the creep feeder.

Anyway, weaning time arrived and last week we moved them down the lane to the paddock by our house.  It’s the first time we have moved so many sheep and also the first time we have moved lambs (we used the trailer when they were small).  It’s only a bout 400 yards, but there are a few tempting openings, tempting to sheep that is.  So we drafted in help from our neighbours.  20 out of 21 made it but one panicked and just stood there in the lane refusing to move.  So we had to carry her, all 34kg!  The next day, the 6 mums went off on their holidays to a pasture a mile or so away.  After a short panicked look around for their lambs, they were soon munching away happily.  To be honest, I think they needed the rest!

During the week, our lambs have been moving to their new homes.  6 ewe lambs and 2 ram lambs headed off for pastures new.  One lucky ram lamb is off to Wales to breed this year!  It was both kind of bittersweet to see them ago, but they have all gone to great homes and will all be looked after really well. But we miss them too.

We have also been halter training Wart, our best looking lamb.  We plan to show him at Frome Show in September – another new experience.

Today, we separated out the 3 remaining ram lambs into our new paddock.  It’s quite a des res with new water trough and new shelter (which I built yesterday).

So now, in the main paddock, there are but 3 ewes and the remaining ewe lamb Witchy who we have decided to keep.  They’ll be reunited with the 6 mums in a couple of weeks, once their milk has dried up and their condition is improved.

All in all, our first year of lambing has been a fantastic experience.  You’ll never catch Nicole or myself working in an office again!

There is no time to rest with young lambs around.  And it’s not just about keeping a constant eye on our lambs to ensure they are getting enough to eat.  The lactating ewes need plenty to eat as all of their resources are going into making milk.  And the lambs like their milk!

And this is complicated by the fact that those ewes that lost their lambs need to be underfed to avoid mastitis.

Anyway, the lambs are doing well but one or two of the ewes were beginning to suffer.  This is despite twice daily high protein sheep nut supplements.  They had pretty much eaten all the grass in our paddock, so we decided to move them up to our other field.  This hadn’t been grazed since last summer, so there is plenty of grass.  It’s also much bigger and has two fallen trees (courtesy of the winter storms).  Great play areas for lambs.

We decided to move them by trailer, the prospect of keeping the lambs from disappearing through hedges a bit too worrying.

We also took the opportunity to spray them to prevent fly strike, fly strike being a horrible thing to happen to a sheep of any size.

All of the sheep and lambs wouldn’t fit into the trailer.  Even with two trips!  So some lucky lambs got to go by car.  Driven a few hundred yards in the lap of luxury, well the back of a Freelander!

Well, they all love it up there.  There’s lot’s of space, lots to eat and lots to do.

And we quite enjoy the short bike ride when it’s bottle and nuts feeding time :).  As do the dogs, Haribo proving to be quite the expert at loping along beside the bikes.  He’s even taught George, who was scared of bikes, that this is good fun, so they now both run alongside with big doggie grins on their faces.  Even Maxi seems to enjoy trotting along, albeit a few metres back and on the lead!

Hi.  I’m Witchy and I have logged in here to tell you my story.  I was born on Friday 25th March into a glorious, sunny spring day.  I followed my brother out and landed on a towel thoughtfully placed for me by the humans.  My mother, Selene, quickly bonded with me and started to lick me dry.  What a great start to life in this strange new world.

The humans also gave me some food to drink.  That helped me feel warm inside and I was soon on my feet.  While the human’s milk was OK, what I really wanted was some of mum’s milk, so I started trying to find her teats.  This was not easy.  The humans helped by clearing some of the wool, but whoever designed us sheep did not think about us poor wee new born lambs.  The teat pokes right into mum’s leg and is very low.  And I have such long legs!

On top of that, mum kept moving about, eating the green stuff that seemed to be everywhere.

Still, the sum was warm and it seemed a nice place.

However, I soon began to feel tired.  It was all a bit overwhelming.  So I lay down for a rest and watched mum and my brother move off.  Ok, I thought, it’s my chance to fulfil my life ambition and move quickly onto the next world.

Well, fat chance.  Before I knew it the female human had scooped me up and taken me into a building, a house I think they call it.  She tried to get me to drink some of that milk.  I wasn’t having that.  Well, I’d had had a sniff at realising my life’s ambition and I wasn’t going to give that up easily.  And besides, this world didn’t look that much fun anyway.

So, I nibbled away at the bottle, but I cleverly didn’t swallow.

But, the female human was wise to this and before I knew it she, with the help of the male human, had a tube down my throat and suddenly my tummy was full.

This felt good, but I wasn’t going to let on.  I was at peace and ready to move on to the next world.

But still, the humans wouldn’t let me go.  For the next day or so they continued not only to pump milk into me, but also some strange green liquid that looked like wee.  And not only that, in the middle of the night the human female stuck a needle into my leg muscle and injected something into it.  The cheek!

However, by Sunday, I felt strangely better.  I got up and wandered around.  I realised I had been sharing my pen with two other lambs.  Their mother had rejected them at birth they told me.  The humans had been caring for them and they loved the humans.  It wasn’t their mother’s fault, the vet hadn’t understood the importance of placing the new born lamb under the mother’s head straight away.  he had been too concerned on helping them get out.  Their poor mother had panicked and despite the humans’ best efforts, their mother never accepted them.

Anyway, after breakfast (which I drank yum yum), the female human took all three of us outside for a walk.  And then I heard her, my mum calling to me.  I answered back “muuum it’s me”.  We had only been together a few hours on Friday, but we remembered each other.

The human female was smart and quickly put me in with her.  But, you know, we sheep are strange creatures.  While mum recognised my voice, my smell was all wrong.  I had been eating milk from a bottle and was covered in human smells.  My mum wasn’t sure and when I tried to suckle, she pushed me away.

But the human was smart and she took me out and we went for a play in the field.  All the time, I could her mum crying out “where are you? Where are you?”

This attracted the attention of the human male.  He said something to the female and next thing I was having my mother’s milk rubbed all over me.  And this time, when I went back into the pen, she let me suckle.

You know, life in this world doesn’t seem so bad after all, maybe I’ll stick around a bit longer!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!