Monday 8 February 2016

195%

Our pregnancy scanning results for this year and we are really pleased. The percentage figure is an average across the whole flock so nearly all of them are having twins. 6 ewes are empty which always brings the result down but we have 2 marked up as having quads! The result reflects the ewes being in good condition when they met the boys back in November.

Now we know how many lambs each ewe is carrying we are able to split the flock up into different groups and match the food they get accordingly. We have just started to give the triplets (and the quad girls) their food as they need to get the additional nutritional support as the lambs growing inside them require more of their energy to grow. The girls having twins will start their food soon and those girls only having one will get very little! Otherwise their one lamb grows too big inside them and they can have problems during labour.

The ground is drying up a little, as I write 'storm Imogen' is blowing a gale which has postponed my plan to do our count for the Big Farmland Bird Count which takes place this week. We hosted a farmland bird identification day here, organised by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and despite wind and rain on that day we were lucky and saw some birds including a buzzard, chaffinch and up on our wildbird seed mix a flock of linnets, meadow pipits and skylarks.

Roly has just come back for lunch and one of our cows is looking like she isn't far off having her calf. We will keep you posted!

More soon

Camilla, Roly, Molly, Freddie and Belle