Diary

April 2012RSS feed

What a change in the weather

Tuesday 3 April, 2012

by Rosemary at 7:43pm in Anything goes 1 comment Comments closed

Last week, the Met office was forecasting snow for this week. As we sat out in the sun in shirt sleeves, I thought "no way" - but the bods at the Met office were right.

Our first lamb is now 12 days old - hasn't seen rain. Well, he saw it last night. We house our pregnant ewes at night but once ewes have lambed and the lambs are well mothered, we leave them out. Yesterday, just in case the forecast was right, I asked Dan to put the livestock trailer in the nursery field to afford some shelter, if not in it, then around and under it.

Hubbards

Tuesday 3 April, 2012

by Rosemary at 8:04pm in Poultry 2 comments Comments closed

Picked up our ten Hubbard chicks today - feels like Easter

The Stringys

Monday 16 April, 2012

by Rosemary at 12:27pm in Sheep Comments closed

We have a gimmer (Nellie) with twins and she doesn't seem to have much milk. She's got a lovely udder, no heat, nice placed teats and her lambs do suckle away. She loves her boys and tucks herself up so that they get latched on easily.

Stringy lambsNellie's lambs

They suckled quick so have definitely had whatever colostrum she had - and they are nice bright lambs (we've nicknamed them "the stringys" as they are quite bid framed but, well, stringy".

Well, that will be lambing over for another year

Monday 16 April, 2012

by Rosemary at 12:45pm in Sheep Comments closed

Well, that's lambing over at Dalmore for another year. The last two ewes and their lambs went out this morning, although Nellie's twins (the Stringys) are still getting a top up from a bottle.

The lambing box is cleaned out and out of date stuff discarded; flock register is completed; lambing pens are down, although the lambing shed has been left bedded just in case the weather turns and I want to bring the littlest lambs in.

Too close for comfort

Tuesday 17 April, 2012

by Rosemary at 9:48am in Sheep 1 comment Comments closed

On a small property like Dalmore, nowhere is very far from the house, but this year, the sheep nursery is in Home Field, which is directly in front of the house and our bedroom window. This morning at 3.30am, when I thought the broken nights were over, I wakened to the sound of Jura bleating like mad.

Since she was just turned out yesterday, I thought I'd better go and check that all was well - I suspected that she had just "lost" her lamb. And so it was that I was out in jammies and wellies, in the dark and the rain, with a flashlight, looking for the "lost" lamb. To be fair, it was pretty horrid - windy and sleety - but Jura was soon reunited with lamby.

© The Accidental Smallholder Ltd 2003-2024. All rights reserved.

Design by Furness Internet

Site developed by Champion IS