weaning the lambs

added by David on Friday August 20, 2010 at 3:03 pm

The dry spell of weather that lasted through much of April, May and June has well and truly passed and with some welcome rain so the grass has started to grow again. But even with a new flush of grass, the lambs and ewes soon find themselves in competition for the same grazing, and by the middle of July they are better off separated from one another.

Weaning tends to be a slightly chaotic job. Although the gathering of the various flocks is straight forward, once in the sheep pens the  dogs push them single file through a long narrow sheep ‘race’. At the end of the race I switch a gate from one side to another putting ewes into one pen and the lambs into another. As more and more sheep pass through the race the din of bleating ewes and lambs increases, until we end up with the flock split completely in two. The ewes are easy to return to the fields as they will run in search of their lambs assuming that they will find them back in the fields from where they came. These adult sheep need little grass for the rest of the summer, so I chose the barest fields to return them to.

Lambs require a little more attention, and this year they received a worm dose, their second vaccination against clostridial disease and  a bolus containing selenium and cobalt (a bolus is a heavy solid lump about the size of the end of your little finger, which lodges in the stomach and dissolves over 5 months) Each of the lambs takes thirty seconds to treat, and this year we weaned 800 lambs!

The lambs can now have the best grass for the rest of the summer, but driving newly weaned lambs is not straight forward. It needs lots of dogs with lots of energy, so this year it was the turn of  Mist, Eddie and Fly, with a little from Fern (when she could be bothered!) Fly is really proving herself, and has absolutely boundless energy. But the lambs feel leaderless and swirl and split and break in all directions, so driving over four hundred lambs through the track in the woods was quite entertaining! It took nearly an hour to drive the lambs to their new pasture. By that time the dogs were deparate for water and rest. It’s a great reminder as to why I need to keep young dogs coming on to join the team.

For twenty four hours both ewes and lambs break the tranquility of Borough Farm, with a chorus of bleating, but the fresh grass soon proves a distraction and peace returned to the valley.

weaning-the-lambs




sheepdog displays

added by David on Thursday July 15, 2010 at 10:32 pm

It’s the middle of July and we are already well into our season of Sheepdog and Falconry displays at Borough farm. Although the weather has been much better than it has the last few summers  (in fact I’ve been hoping for a little rain to make the grass grow) for the last couple of weeks, Wednesday seems to have been the only wet evening of the week!

However, it’s given us a chance to try out the new barn as an undercover seating area, and I’m pleased to say that it works really well.

But we’ve had enough rain now to freshen the grass and even to put a little water back into some of the ponds again, so I’ll be quite happy to see a return of the sun. As an old farmer said to me recently when I commented that we could do with some rain ‘be careful what you wish for, it might not know when to stop!’


dsc01835

the first display in the new barn

a dry time

added by David on Wednesday June 30, 2010 at 12:31 pm

There is a saying the ‘the weather always pays its debts’ and so it seems this year. The past three summers have been disastrously wet causing as many problems for farmers as it has for the local tourist industry, but this year it seems to be all change. We haven’t had much rain for over six months, meaning that the ground water level was already low, and for the past six weeks it has been hot and sunny with hardly a wet day, so the fields are already beginning to ‘burn’ (go brown)

The adult sheep cope amazingly well with short dry grass during the summer, but I can already see that the growth of some of the lambs has slowed down. It is this time of the year that we make hay and silage to feed through next winter, but so far the fields that have been mown have yielded far less grass than expected. We’ll have to try to cut further fields over the rest of the summer.

I guess that farmers always moan about the weather and we certainly have moaned about the last three summers. If it is true that ‘the weather always pays it’s debts’ we could be in for a long drought this summer, so there could be a lot more moaning to come!!

A dry time on Morte Point


Sheep grazing on a very dry Morte Point

treating the lambs

added by David on Wednesday June 9, 2010 at 11:00 pm

We hardly seem to have finished lambing, when it’s time to get the lambs in for their first round of treatments. It’s been a difficult spring for the sheep, the long cold dry spell meant that the grass was slow to start growing and although the ewes were fed extra pellets, they didn’t produce as much milk as normal, which in turn causes the lambs to nibble at the grass earlier than they usually would. So the first treatment round in the second week of May included a worm dose for the lambs, together with a second dose for another internal parasite, coccidiosis, and a vaccination against pasteurella, the disease that is the biggest killer of sheep.

With over 900 lambs to treat it’s a big job, completed over four days. The noise from the sheep pens is enormous as every ewe calls to it’s lambs and every lamb responds. Once back in the fields it take several hours for the ewes and lambs to mother up again and peace and quiet.

p4131172

lambing open days

added by David on Thursday April 29, 2010 at 10:47 pm

We’d been planning for some time to open the lambing barns to visitors this year, and with the interest aroused by the BBC’s ‘Lambing live’ programs it proved a great year to start our lambing open days.  With the lambing in full swing it took a huge effort to ready the barns for visitors (we put up nearly 100 information and safety notices!) but with the help of all the family we managed all the preparations and on April 3rd we opened the doors for the first time. I must admit to being slightly nervous about inviting visitors in at such a busy time, with no control over when lambs might be born, or what sheep problems might arise. In the event I needn’t have worried, the viewing gallery that we incorporated into the new barn proved a great success, and the sheep delivered lambs right on cue. We had some lovely comments left in the visitors book, so it now looks as if lambing open days are likely to become a regular part of the borough farm calendar.

the bottle lamb corner


the lambing season

added by David on Thursday April 29, 2010 at 10:25 pm

The lambing season began on 21st March this year and was hectic from day 1. The first 8 days saw nearly 300 ewes give birth and right in the middle of that first week the weather to turned  cold and wet. We were forced to keep the lambs in for an extra couple of days, which uses up every inch of space and creates a lot of extra work. Fortunately the cold spell only lasted for 3 days, after that we could turn ewes and lambs out to the more sheltered fields. With plenty of good sized double lambs born and no more than the usual lambing problems, it’s been a good lambing season and we’re now back into a more normal routine and catching up on some sleep!

lambs playing

first lambs

added by David on Friday March 26, 2010 at 11:51 pm

p1010947 It’s always good to see the first lambs of the year, and on Sunday evening the first lambs arrived in our new lambing barn. With most of the flock looking very heavily in lamb,I knew that it wouldn’t be long before the rush started, and on Monday no less than 50 lambs were born! We’re now with the sheep for almost 24 hours a day, and hoping that the weather will dry up a little so that we can turn ewes and lambs out into the field. Sometimes lambing seems to be so busy that you don’t know where to turn next, but as a I was once told by an old shepherd ‘they only have to arrive once’. And much as I love to see the first lambs of the year, it’s also pretty good to see the last!

lambing’s just around the corner

added by David on Tuesday March 2, 2010 at 10:51 pm

The past few weeks have been very busy with the building of the new sheep shed, but with the shed nearly complete I need to turn my attention to the coming lambing season. The ewe flock is being fed heavily in order that they produce strong lambs and give plenty of milk, and have been vaccinated with the clostridial vaccine, which provides protection to lambs via the ewes milk, against 8 different diseases. Half of the flock has been housed in the exiting sheep shed for the last couple of months, with the rest of the flock still grazing on the National Trust ground at Mortehoe.

With the new shed due to be completed this week, I hope that all of the flock will be under cover by the weekend.

This picture is of ewes steaming breath in the early morning

p3070029-b


building the sheep shed

added by David on Friday February 12, 2010 at 10:21 pm

Work is well underway for the new sheep shed. Although Borough farm looks like a building site I’m hoping that by the end of next week (the third week of February) the shed will be almost complete, with just the concrete alley ways left to do. As soon as it’s finished I’ll be bringing the rest of the flock in, so this year the whole flock will be under cover for the start of lambing

p2122017

return of the natives

added by David on Tuesday February 2, 2010 at 10:38 pm

Borough farm is surrounded by steep woodland and each winter as the grass stops growing, I always seem to end up with half a dozen ewes taking themselves off for a better life in the forest. And it’s not just any old sheep, they are invariably led by one black-faced ewe, (the ‘legend of Borough woods’ for anyone who has watched that episode of  ‘Mist’ on the telly)  who seems to feel more at home amongst the thicket and bramble of the deepest woodland. A couple of weeks ago a neighbor reported seeing some sheep in the woods, so I set off on the annual search, accompanied by Mist Jake and Ernie.

After a little over an hour, the errant ewes were spotted by Jake, and although they were determined to run in any direction other than back to the , the dogs were up to the task and six ewes were eventually captured and will now spend the rest of the winter in the shed with the rest of the flock!

p2052014


« earlier posts