[crobertson]

Hi folks

Just looking for some advice or opinions on lambing outdoors ! We had our first lambs last year from our very tame / pet texels so they were quite happy with the luxury of being brought indoors and pampered. However due to lambing difficulties etc we sold the girls and moved to our favourite breed and brought 10 purebred Derbyshire Gritstones, a tough local hill breed, last September.

These girlies are no where near as tame but are getting used to me every morning and night and will come close enough to touch but freak out when penned and especially when we brought them in once - they wouldn't even come in when the temps were down to -12!! I'm now starting to wonder what is best for them over lambing to avoid their stress 

Their lambing is spread out with 4 due in 4 weeks, 3 due in 5 weeks, 1 due in 6 weeks and the last 2 due in 7 weeks so I couldn't bring them all in together and think they would freak out more being split up. I was therefore thinking of bringing them onto a well rested paddock next to the house before the first are due, have them out in the day and possibly bring them in at night with the help of feed (do have fox issues so wouldn't want to leave to lamb out at night) but let them out in the morning. Regular checks throughout the day, if any lamb, move to an indoor mothering up pen for bonding, iodine, check suckling etc where they can go out with their buddies in the morning.

Any thoughts ? Too much moving in and out ? I think it worries me more than them !
 

[Marches Farmer]

You could start giving them feeds in the shed so they recognise it as a place of safety and food rather than a dark, scary place where they're trapped.

[Buttermilk]

Your well rested paddock will be nice and wormy by the time the last lambs are starting to eat the grass.

[Sbom]

My Romney’s lamb outside away from home from from mid April no matter what the weather. They don’t need iodine if field is dry and take themselves off to lamb so making their own mothering area.
They very rarely lamb at night, mainly at first light which I guess is nature at its best.
Bringing th3m in at night would upset them as they are independent types!
I barely ever need to intervene and it’s a system that works well for all of us. Never had a lamb taken by a fox and they are about. ( I know because I scan and all lambs are accounted for)

[SallyintNorth]

Hill and primitive types are usually best off left to their own devices. Too much intervention can cause more issues than it avoids.

You can usually get the mother to follow the lambs if you need to get her in after lambing. The biggest difficulty would be a ewe who needs help actually lambing and won’t let you catch her.  (We had a horrid time chasing a Swaledale ewe about on moorland with a lamb’s head sticking out of her rear once. Amazingly, the lamb did survive.). But the stress of incarceration can cause more issues - rejecting and even beating up lambs, for the most part - so from your description, I’d think bring them down to the nearby paddock before lambing, feed them in the shed but leave the doors open for them to make their own choices.  I wouldn’t pen new families unless there’s an issue. And I wouldn’t handle newborn lambs if they’re outside on grass, at least not for the first few hours while the mother bonds with them. I’d move new families to clean grass after a few days - family groups are pretty easy to drive as a set, or you can get the mum to follow the lambs.

A group of hill ewes are more than up to dealing with foxes.