raddling the rams

added by David on Monday November 21, 2011 at 3:18 pm

Autumn is always a nice time in North Devon, the grass is still growing which is good for the sheep, the Beech trees have turned  beautiful shade of gold and winter hasn’t yet set in. The Autumn sheep work is all finished and the rams have been joined with the ewes at the end of October, ready to start lambing on the 28th of March. The rams wear a thick paint called ‘raddle paint’ on their chests, so that as they serve a ewe they leave a colored make behind. By changing the color of the paint avery 9  days, I can later sort the ewes into groups which will lamb in either the first eight day period, the second eight days, or the red marked ewes which are the ‘lates’

So every other day I have to catch the rams and hold them to apply the raddle. Rams are strong so it can be hard work, but after they have been raddled a couple of times they seem to get used to it, and usually by the second week, they are quite easy to handle. It’s not always the case though and there are occasions when a young rams takes off across the field with me holding on. Just as well there’s no one but the dogs watching!

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fattening the lambs

added by David on Sunday November 6, 2011 at 10:17 pm

This seasons lambs are now 7 months old and have changed beyond recognition in those 7 months. Although most now weigh around 35 to 40 kilos, they need to fatten further before they can be  sold at market. By November the grass of of limited quality and the best fields have been saved for the ewe flock, so there is little chance of fattening the lambs at Borough Farm. Traditionally autumn lambs are fattened on root crops, such as stubble turnips and swedes, and this year I have been fortunate to be able to buy 22 acres of turnips from a neighboring dairy farmer.

It took several days for the lambs to decide that they could actually eat the turnip leaves, so I provided a grass field adjacent to the turnips for the lambs to graze until they became used to the turnip. However once they acquire the taste of the new feed they love it, so much so that the field has to be divided into small sections with an electric fence. Without this the lambs would walk over the whole crop, gorging themselves and trampling the turnips in the process. Every second day the fence has to be moved and  the lambs allowed to eat a new section, and now my arrival in the land rover is enough to bring the lambs running across the field bleating, in anticipation of a fresh section of turnip. Fly and Mist accompany on each occasion and understand that for a change their role is not to gather the sheep, but to hold them back until the fence is moved.

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snakes and adders

added by David on Sunday July 17, 2011 at 11:14 pm

I’m fortunate to spend my working life is the wonderful North Devon countryside with its great array of wildlife. Whilst most of what I see during the working week is not particularly rare, it still brings a sense of awe. Gannets are frequently to be seen diving off the cliffs of Morte point, Seals are a common sight and the Grass hopper warblers calling from the scub-land bring a sultry feeling to summers days.

Another summer regular on Morte point is not often seen by walkers and if it was might well bring a some apprehension. The coastal heathland is an ideal habitat for the UK’s only venomous snake, the Adder. If you know where to look they are quite numerous along the cliffs and sand dunes of North Devon, lying on rocky ledges, or in the top of heather bushes catching the warmth of the summer sun. The picture below shows a beautiful brown (female I think) at a spot that I call adder rock. She was to be seen here most sunny mornings throughout May and June, but has recently disappeared, She might have moved on, although the presence of a Raven close by one morning leads me to suspect that she might have met a different fate.

Adders come in an array of colorings, this year I’ve seen black, brown and green. Usually only a couple of feet long although many years ago there was an adder to be seen regularly on the end of the point which seemed to be twice that size!

They are shy creatures for the most part and usually slither away into the rocks or undergrowth when disturbed, but I’m always a little wary of the dogs being bitten, An adder bite is potentially fatal to a sheepdog, but I’m assured by the vets that with prompt treatment recovery rates are pretty good.

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young farmers shearing evening

added by David on Wednesday June 8, 2011 at 5:30 pm

For the past year I’ve been involved with relaunching Braunton Young Farmers. The original club folded back in 90’s, but now there’s a new generation of 10 to 26 year olds keen to get involved, and over the past 12 months the club has been gaining momentum. Last Summer was full of shows and games,  in the winter we held stock judging competitions (over 30 members turned out to judge lambs in a freezing barn one January evening). But for the last couple of weeks the onus has been on sheep shearing. So one evening we hosted the shearing at Borough farm. The enthusiasm was amazing with 27 members turning up, 24 of whom had never shorn a sheep before!  Fortunately we had 5 experienced shearers on hand to help, and between 6 and 10 pm 40 sheep parted company with their wool, and left the shed looking quite neat and tidy considering the number of novice shearers.

But above all it was great to see so many of the local youngsters getting stuck in and learning a new skill, one which is notoriously difficult to master. The Young Farmers movement is nation wide, if you would like to find out more, this link takes you to the National Young Farmers web-site.

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no sooner is lambing over….

added by David on Wednesday May 18, 2011 at 4:31 pm

No sooner is the lambing season over than it is time to gather the flock in. In fact by the beginning of May the oldest lambs are six weeks old, and some are approaching 20 kg in weight. At this age they are beginning to nibble at the grass, and are consequently vulnerable to picking up worms from the grass and sometimes also a parasite called coccidiosis. So I gather the lambs back to the sheep pens to ‘drench’  them as a preventative. While they are in the pens they also have their first vaccination to prevent the clostridial group of diseases.

The first gather of the year is always the most difficult. The ewe are trying to protect their lambs and the lambs are convinced that they will find their mothers in the field from  which they have just been gathered. In addition the lambs have little respect for the dogs and will constantly try to run past them, so as you can imagine chaos rules!

It makes a tough few days for the dogs, Ernie and Fern are too old to be more than the minimal assistance, and Jake too is feeling his years. So that leaves Mist and Fly to do the hard work, and this year it was Fly doing the lions share of the work. Her stamina is amazing, chasing and turning each lamb as it breaks. When we finally pen the sheep back at the farm, she’s still full of energy for the pen work, and later on to return the various flocks to their fields.

I’ve finished treating all of the 650 lambs at Borough farm, with just Morte Point left to treat, and as soon as they are finished we’ll be ready to start shearing!

Fly in pursuit of  a breaking lamb

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the end of lambing

added by David on Monday May 2, 2011 at 10:23 pm

I often say that the best lambs of the year are the first and the last, the rest just seem to disappear into a complete blur. It’s been a pretty good lambing season this year, mainly because of the amazing weather. Our first lambs were born in the last week in March, these lambs are now six weeks old and have hardly felt rain on their backs!  Lamb numbers have been quite good too. We’ll never produce as many lambs from our Romney ewes as you can from other breeds of sheep, but as much of the farm is of  poor grazing, I still believe that we are best off aiming to produce an average of one and a half lambs from each ewe. It’s not just the weather that makes for a  good lambing, the flock was in excellent condition this year, which meant that they lambed with plenty of milk and produced good sized lambs.

So all in all it’s been a good year and has set us on course for a successful 2011. But when you are a farmer you always need something to worry (moan) about and at the moment it’s the lack of rain. It has hardly rained at Borough Farm since February and the ponds are already dry. So we are either in for the worst drought ever, or else (and more likely) it’s going to start raining and not stop all summer! So we’d better make the most of  this dry weather while it lasts.

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lambing again

added by David on Friday April 1, 2011 at 11:00 pm

The lambing season is now well underway, and the barns are alive with the sounds of bleating lambs. Between the various members of the family we manage to keep watch for nearly  twenty four hours a day, although ‘keeping watch’ might not be the right term.

There is always something that needs to be done in a lambing shed. Once the ewes have given birth they are moved to a small individual pen, and the navels of the new born lambs are dressed with iodine to prevent disease. Here we check that the lambs are feeding, and that the ewe doesn’t reject one of her lambs as sometimes happens. If all is well the ewe and her lambs are marked with the same number potential breeding ewe lambs are identified, then ewe with lambs are moved in a trailer out to the fields. As the whole precess has to be repeated 700 times, you can imagine that it keeps us all busy.

And with the lambing open days starting next week, we’re also trying to get the barns ship shape. If you are planning to come along we look forward to seeing you, out first open day is April 9th and runs through to the 17th April. If you want to see a lamb born your best chance will be in the first half of the week.

This year’s first set of quads.

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breeding success?

added by David on Thursday March 10, 2011 at 11:25 pm

One of the frustrations of sheep farming is that next year is always a year away! So when you are trying to improve the breeding of the sheep progress is slow. You have to be patient to see the result of breeding decisions, and it really takes several years before you can really tell if changes made are  proving successful.

In Autumn 2009 I decided on an experiment to put a few of my Romney ewes in lamb to a Blue Faced Leicester ram. The Blue Face is a strange sheep, the breed itself is ’soft’ in the extreme, meaning that it is difficult to keep flesh on and liable to succumb to even the slightest adverse weather. But when it is crossed with other pure breeds, the resulting ewe lambs can make fine breeding sheep.

The early signs of the experiment have been encouraging, so much so that last autumn I bought some more Blue Faced rams. Over three hundred Romney ewes are now expecting Blue faced Leicester lambs. Last years lambs are now nearly a year old, I had them into the pens last week for vaccination, worming and docking (removing the wool from the back ends)  I’m really pleased with the way that they are looking with long straight backs, proud heads and well fleshed backs. In a years time these sheep will be expecting their first crop of lambs, and that will be the first indication as to whether they will be the sort of breeding ewes which we are looking for. So by 2015 I should really be able to see if the decision that I made last autumn has been a success.


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a shortage of silage

added by David on Sunday February 6, 2011 at 8:28 pm

Some older farmers will say that on the 1st of February you should have half of your winter feed still left in the barn. In other words the winter may still have a long way to go. I’d like to think that they are being a little on the pessimistic side. The north Devon climate is generally a mild, if rather wet and windy. On the 1st of March I do think that can at least think about the coming spring!

However with most of the lambing ewes now housed for the winter, the stack of silage bales is going down rather fast. Last summer was a tricky time to make silage and hay, June and the first half of July were very dry and the fields that we cut yielded only a light amount of grass. In late July the weather changed and there were only a few spells of weather dry enough to bale the silage.

My latest calculations are that we should just about have enough silage to get us through to the spring. I’m currently feeding about a tonne of silage a day, adn that will decrease later in the ewes pregnancy as the unborn lambs take up more of the available space inside the ewes. During the last few weeks of pregnancy the ewes requirement for protein and energy goes sky high, so we feed a high quality pellet, with the silage just there as a bit of extra bulk. So fingers are crossed that March sees some warm sunny weather, and that we can turn the ewes out with lambs at foot to a good early bite of grass.

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Snow again

added by David on Saturday January 1, 2011 at 11:18 pm

If you’d asked me a couple of years ago if we get much snow in North Devon , I’d have told you that in the past 15 years we’d hardly had a frost. But for the third winter in a row, we’ve had a good covering of snow, with temperatures as low as minus 15. It comes as a bit of a shock when we’ve been used to so many warm winters. The farm house in particular has been very cold, I’ve even been sleeping with my wooly hat on!

The ewe flock are largely unaffected by the snow. I usually start feeding silage at this time of year anyway, it just means that  with the grass covered they eat a bit more than they usually would. The lambs are a little more problematic as they are all out at keep on a local dairy farms (where they fatten easily on the the rich grass that is left behind when the milking cows are housed for the winter) These lambs are reluctant to eat any silage or hay offered, preferring to scrape through the snow in search of meagre pickings of grass. Fortunately the grass was only completely covered for a few days, and now with temperatures rising again, the lambs are happier and the ewes are eating less silage.

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The snow brings a certain beauty to Borough Farm, but it is nice when it goes again.


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