Congratulations on a good start to lambing
We used to get this 'cow teats' thing with some of the Swales. We'd mark them so we'd know to keep them indoors next time - firstly because their lambs might perish if they lambed in the night and it was a cold one; lambs rarely seem to be able to latch onto these humungous sausages on their own, secondly because we'd be able to milk a litre of colostrum off them for the freezer!, and thirdly because (useful as the colostrum was
, we wouldn't keep any of their daughters on for breeding.
Here, these aging farmers (BH is 60 today
) have had to decide that any ewe comes in or needs personal attention (apart from first timers just needing a bit of help to learn the job) is marked to not breed again. We need to reduce the amount of work, and especially the amount of catching ewes in the field, because we simply aren't getting any younger! And we're lambing with no help this year, which on reflection we haven't done for a while - there's been an 'apprentice' (wannabe vet or wannabe smallholder) or other bod about the last few years - and we're really noticing the work when there's no youngster about to do some of the running!
