[moprabbit]

 I value your comment Sally - thanks very much!

[suziequeue]

Yes mop - agree with Sally. Well done for your foresight.

[Bramblecot]

There are farm experience and livestock training courses advertised in our local paper this week, including sheep management.  I have no personal knowledge of them but the website is:  www.beechhayesfarmtraining.co.uk.  They are based at Churchinford near Taunton, Somerset. 

[SallyintNorth]

7 years ago I did a 2-day course, "Ruminant Health for Smallholders", with Kingfisher Vets, Crewkerne.  Their aim was to give smallholders a good understanding of how to know your sheep (or cow) is healthy, and keep her that way, and when to call the vet and with what information. 

It was one day classroom and one day on farm, the latter giving practical hands-on training in handling sheep (and cattle), trimming feet, inspecting teeth, etc.   It might be worth contacting Kingfisher to see if they are doing any courses now; I think I was on their first one.  There was a grant, I think, for people who had a holding number.

[Bramblecot]

Also try the Magdalen Project at Chard, Somerset.  I did a one day there - very useful.  Their contact was a bit erratic but the course tutor was good.

[moprabbit]

Thanks Suziequeue for your comment - its really nice to have knowledgeable 'sheepie' people giving me positive feedback about the way I deal with my sheep; so many of my sheep friends just can't see why I have them as pets and keep trying to persuade me to have them tupped. My only fear is that if for any reason in the future (and it would need to be serious!!),  I  unable to keep them, maybe no- one will want 4 ewes that have never had lambs, but at the moment I'm sticking to my guns!
Most of the husbandry courses I've come across seem to be down south, Wales or Scotland (probably due to higher numbers of sheep in those areas) very few around  Notts./SYorks, area

[Small Farmer]

It may be "odd" where you are but theres quite a few pet lawn mowers around here.  Our next door neighbour had two enormous cows for 12 years who had no conventional function whatsoever.  Mind you his wife was a bit special 


I love the lambing myself but I perfectly understand where you're coming from, so relax.

[Blackbird]

Hi moprabbit, I have 5 sheep - an elderly GFD ewe and her wether lamb, another GFD wether lamb, a Shetland ewe lamb and Hebridean/Lincoln Longwool cross wether lamb. They are just pets/lawnmowers really. They are real characters, and much more interactive than I thought sheep would be (mostly food-driven I realise!). They're also companions for the ponies and we plan to rotate the land between them as they are impervious to each others' parasites and will "clean up" the pasture after each other. Will feed back after my course in case it is of use to others.

[moprabbit]

Hope you enjoy the course and that its useful!

[Blackbird]

Really enjoyed my course yesterday and found it really useful - many thanks to Doreen and Steve at Oakberrow. We spent the day preparing some ewes and lambs for tupping. We dagged the GFD ewes and I trimmed their feet with Steve's supervision - really reassuring to know how far it is safe to go without injury. I also dagged and wormed 3 of the rams - the biggest sheep I've ever seen! We went through nutrition and administering injections, as well as general sheep care and health issues. Result is I feel much more confident having practised with someone watching who knows what they're doing.

Steve and I concluded GFDs are not perhaps the best choice for beginners - we had a good moan about squitty bums, terrible feet, how heavy and strong they are to turn and how heavy the fleece is. However, we love them for their docile and curious personalities. The rest  of their flock are Texels who Steve described as "Marmite sheep" (you either love or hate them!) and Ryelands. The Ryelands are lovely and I may not be able to resist getting some at some point..... 

[wellies]

oh I'm so excited  my OH and I are booked on to a course with Doreen & Steve this month. They're going to help us with selecting and improving our Ryeland flock so we can think about doing a little bit of showing next year. I've also asked for some advice on choosing which lambs to retain etc. Doreen sounded lovely on the phone, I love chatting/learning about sheep so hopefully it will be a really good day 

[VSS]

Doreen sounded lovely on the phone

She is 

[annie burrows]

Hello blackbird, I'm new here and have just read your post - I too was hoping for a sheep husbandry course at Moulton college but there's nothing available.  Did you sort something out for yourself in this area (northampton).  If so, do you want to join resources?  anne

[Blackbird]

Hi Anne, I ended up going to Herefordshire for my course - couldn't find anything nearer after Moulton cancelled. They don't seem to have the Sheep for Smallholders course on the Moulton website any more - or the Sheep Shearing courses they used to run. I'm gutted, as I was planning to shear mine myself next time, after they came back from our local sheep farmer with several nasty gashes and too traumatized to eat for a day.

Whereabouts are you? I've spotted an animal handling and management course running at Bedford College (3 Saturday mornings in October) which I'm thinking about - the link is here, see page 14:
www.bedford.ac.uk/pdf/PT%202012-13.pdf

What do you think? It's not specific to sheep though.