Sheep
Preparing for lambing
Monday 27 February, 2012
Our first lambs are due on 25th March, so we're starting to get ready.
I went on a lambing course run by Ardene Veterinary Practice and Scottish Agricultural Colleges on 10th February and it was very useful. Using dead lambs and lambing simulators, we were able to practice delivering various presentations as well as stomach tubing, tailing, castrating and giving intra-peritoneal glucose injections. I had read about the last technique but would have been reluctant to try it without this practical opportunity.
Ewes scanned
Tuesday 24 January, 2012
The scanner was here at 6.35am today - she's visiting eight holdings and doing 600 sheep today 
What a star, Gillian at www.booscan.co.uk.
All nine are in lamb. Of the three gimmers, Niamh and Nova have singles and Nellie has twins. Of the six ewes, Luna, Lucy and Juno have twins and Jura, Jinx and Lyra have singles. I'm a wee bit disappointed with Jura and Lyra, who both had twins last year. Jinx has had three single tup lambs previously and I expect the same this year.
Update on sickie Dickie
Sunday 18 December, 2011
I'm very, very pleased to report that Dickie has recovered from his rhododendron snack.
He's had more charcoal, a few oatcakes then a wee feed and some hay. It's a lovely day here, and he really wants to get out. Yesterday, he was quite happy to be inside.
Off to grant his wish now, and let him out. He's a very lucky sheep 
Rhododendron poisoning
Saturday 17 December, 2011
Our pet wether, Dickie, has eaten rhododendron leaves. These are very poisonous and he's a very sick sheep. The next 24 hours will be crucial. It's very serious and the prognosis isn't good.
I'm so cross with myself. There was a pot grown rhododendron in a sink at the back of the caravan; Dickie and Leo have been in there for a week and haven't looked at it and then today...
To be honest, I hadn't even registered that it was there, although I do know that rhododendron is poisonous. Ironically, when we were walking the fences this morning and looking at the place where the pigs are going, I noted that we had to remove the rhododendrons there, for that very reason. Anyway, it's moved now. Horses and stable doors come to mind 
Leo and Dickie back together again
Thursday 1 December, 2011
Well, that's tupping over for another year. The ewes and ewe lambs are now all together in Sheepfold, while Leo and Dickie are reunited in Home Field.
I spoke to the scanner last week; she needs to see the ewes before the 17th January, so I've marked the diary to call her after the festive season.
Sheepfold's pretty bare so I'm putting hay out - if they need it, they'll eat it.
Pickle's lame again - she's one of this year's lambs. She was lame a week ago, so I trimmed the foot and sprayed it with Terramycin. She seemed sound but I noticed she was a bit lame again tonight. We'll catch her tomorrow, clean it with Milton and spray it again; we'll repeat Saturday and Sunday and if that doesn't work, I'll ring the vet for an antibiotic on Monday.
Lamb carcases
Monday 28 November, 2011
I drove down to St Andrew's last week to have a look at our lamb carcases before they were butchered. I thought they looked pretty good compared to the others in the chill.
Ryeland lamb carcases
There was the most enormous cattle beast - it looked like a whale. A half weighed 208kg, so the live animal was probably in the region of 700kg. There were some huge turkeys too - 17 and 19kg. I don't think they would fit in our oven 
Green bums
Sunday 20 November, 2011
Nellie and Jura have green bums. We changed Leo's raddle last weekend to green, hoping we wouldn't see it used. TBH, there was a question mark against Nellie - although she was very faintly yellow, I wasn't sure she'd been tupped. She's now very, very green, so I've no doubt he's well and truly caught her this time.
Jura is always last; she did have a yellow bum, but in the three years she's lambed previously, she's always been last, sometimes by 10 days or so.
Lambs away
Monday 14 November, 2011
Well, that's Dan off to the abattoir with the five tup lambs. Will I ever stop getting a twinge the morning they go? I've been awake since 5am.
This was the best loading we've done - because they loaded themselves. Yesterday at 4pm, Dan reversed the trailer close to the field gate; after dropping the ramp and opening the trailer gates, we built a little pen from the back of the trailer to the field gate itself and called the lambs in. When we cosed the field gate behind them, they were enclosed in a small pen comprising the open trailer and maybe a couple of square metres of grass. The trailer was straw bedded and they had a bucket of water. We left them there overnight.
Lambs booked in
Wednesday 19 October, 2011
Well, that's our five tup lambs booked in to the abattoir and butcher for Monday 14th November. Despite my best intentions to get them away earlier this year, that's the same time as last year. Hey ho, must do better next year.
That was the earliest date the butcher and abattoir could take them and the abattoir don't like taking private kills in November, so I was quite lucky that the butcher's put them through as his lambs.
We're dagging the ewes and ewe lambs this afternoon, then putting Leo and Dickie into the field adjoining them, so that they can get a hint of what's to come, so to speak. Leo's so smelly now and he's getting warmed up on Dickie, much to HIS disgust. Hopefully, they'll all be ready to go on the 29th, when we open the gates
Boys home
Sunday 2 October, 2011
We brought the tup lambs, tup and wether home this morning from Barry Mill, where they've been grazing for a month. They're now in what will be the poultry runs and orchard, grazing it down.
The tup lambs will be going off to slaughter in a couple of weeks and, of course, Leo will be going in with the ewes at the end of the month. Dickie will go and "uncle" the ewe lambs then.
Leo is smelling quite "tuppy" now. I'm planning to put him in a small and, hopefully, secure area in sight and smell of the ewes from the middle of the month, to bring them into season. This year, we had a nice compact lambing over two weeks - if I can get that next spring too, it will be great.
