Friday 8 July 2011

Mowing grass for hay . . . quickly!

There was a lot of noise on the farm this week....we have weaned some of the lambs from their mummies! The noise was definitely coming from the ewes rather than the lambs, which was surprising I always think that the ewes would be pretty relieved to have a bit of a break by now. The sheep calendar is amazing as we are already thinking of getting the ewes ready to receive the rams in about 2 months time. The ewes need to be 'dried off' which means they stop producing milk and all the energy they are consuming from the grass is going directly into their condition.

Other news is that all our hay is in! We have been so blessed with the weather, we needed 5 days of dry and we eventually got it last week. Stuart our contractor came one evening and mowed all the fields in about 4 hours it was incredible, see the video footage. Molly and I were watching and the speed the tractor went was amazing! Molly was transfixed and didn't seem to bat an eyelid as the big noisy tractor approached! Stuart came back and tedded (turned the cut grass to maximise dryness) and then baled and then Roly spent all of Monday loading up the trailer and bringing the bales in, very satisfying.

The rams had their 'MOT' this week - we look at their feet, check their teeth and generally have a good going over to make sure their condition is good, and everything is in working order. We will need to change at least two of our rams, the Lleyn and maybe one of the Texels, to ensure that they are not put with any of their daughters as we keep all our own replacements (ewe lambs which we will breed from next year).

Molly is almost 6 months old, we can hardly believe it! She was christened on Sunday which was very special and true to form clashed with a major farming event...haymaking...but as I've already mentioned, we were lucky with the weather which meant Roly could have the day off.

Our other news is that we are now on Twitter@camillaandroly! So take a look at follow us and we'll let you know about our latest lamb offers and up to the minute news from the farm.

More soon!

Camilla, Roly, Molly, Boris and Belle

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