winter at Borough Farm

Winter is now well and truly upon us, with weeks of rain through October and November. The Borough Farm ewes should now all be in-lamb, the rams were joined with them on the 23rd of October and because sheep are pregnant for 147 days (within a day or 2) I know that we will start to lamb on the 19th March. The rams carry a ‘raddle’ paint on their chests, and when they ’serve’ (mate with) a they leave a raddle mark behind. By changing the colour of the paint after a week, I can tell which sheep will lamb in which week.

This year the ewes went to ram very quickly with 310 ewes marked with an orange raddle mark for the first week of lambing. With most of the rest of the flock marked (marked Blue) for the second week, we are in for a busy time, so I’m hoping that if it rains now we’ll have a dry time at the end of march!

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