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Posted: Saturday 18 October, 2014

by Rosemary at 7:16pm in Sheep Comments closed

Today’s job (18th October) was to bring our female sheep home from our temporary grazing. Our fifteen breeding ewes and gimmers were at Barry Mill and our eight ewe lambs plus two “nurse” ewes (retired but two of our “originals” so here for life) were at a farm near Arbroath.

A combination of routine and the docile (and food motivated) nature of the Coloured Ryeland made this fairly easy. Since we’ve had the temporary grazing, getting on the trailer has become part of the normal routine and usually means “new grass”, so loading the two small flocks was pretty straightforward; when they see the open trailer, they’re on.

The fifteen females going to the tup (eight ewes and seven gimmers) were fluked and feet and bums checked. All were clean and very few needed any foot trimming at all. They’re now out in the paddock adjoining Taylor’s and will get a high energy lick after I’ve been o the feed store on Monday. I’ve tried flushing them by giving bagged feed but have found it equally effective to give access to a HE lick, although with such small numbers, it’s difficult to see much significance in any statistics.

Taylor was quite interested in the ewes; they were more interested in the fresh grass. I won’t put him in with them until the 12th November when we’re back off holiday though, so I guess Tiny Ted could be in for a bit of a torrid time ☺

The ewe lambs were wormed and fluked; again bums and feet were pretty good; probably because of the good dry summer we’ve had. They’re now out in the ponies’ field and finding out how electric fencing works.

Once Taylor’s had his 35 days with the ewes, I’ll put the twenty five females together until the ewes are scanned in January, when I’ll spilt them according to how many lambs they’re carrying; thereafter ewe lambs, any empty ewes and singles will go in one group and all ewes expecting two or more lambs will go in a second group. They’ll all be dosed for fluke then too (except for any empty ewes that we’re culling).

Running a group of 25 on our wee paddocks means that we get the paddocks grazed off; we’ll them start feeding hay in one paddock and resign that one to being hammered over winter. Home Paddock will be used for ewes and new lambs in Spring and is closed off now; it’s my intention that there will be nothing on there now until April.

It’s funny having sheep home – but nice too. I kind of miss them when they’re away ☺

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