Day 6 - Lambing spring 2012

Today has been about 10 days rolled into one. It started by walking into the sheds whilst watching the sunrise over the Wittenham Clumps and opening up the doors to the sheds, which feels like opening the curtains! It couldn't have been more atmospheric for Clare who was being a shepherd for the day with us today alongwith Phil and Kinnon who had come back for a second time, it was lovely having them with us today.

It was a busy morning lambing. One lamb had been laid on in the night and another tiny lamb just was not strong enough to make it through either - really sad when we put so much time, energy and emotion into the lambs that need that extra bit of shepherding. We need to get better at remembering there is a barn full of bright, strong lambs doing really well and not just the small ones who we work so hard at keeping alive.

We moved our first group of Mum's and lambs outside which was amazing and a really fun job to do with our visitors. It is always chaos when you let them out of the trailer as they all try and find one another in a new environment and the Mum's are very distracted by the grass!

Our second move was with our ewes and lambs from January, we moved them down the road for the first time, great fun, but slightly high risk, but we managed with the help of a school group of 4 year olds who happened to be out on a trip to the woods, we got them to block off a gate way by all holding hands and giggling, where is the camerea when you need it!

A trip to the butchers was also squeezed in as Mark our neighbour from Dorchester is going to Wallingford market for us tomorrow morning and selling their beef too.

More shepherds for the day tomorrow, one job will be selecting lambs for the next few markets.
Our other job is to start getting the sheds ready for the lambing weekends, putting signs up and explaining everything that is going on to our visitors.

We plan to include a daily update of Henry, who was one of our first orphan lambs, who still hasn't lambed yet but we think it will be rather special when she does. Henry and Molly are great friends, mainly because Molly hands her some extra nuts to eat!

Roly has gone up for his final check and then Akash, one of our lovely vet students is doing the late check at about midnight.

More tomorrow, hopefully the sunshine will be as beautiful as it has been today.

Day 5 - spring lambing 2012

Last night was quiet, only two sets of twins so this morning we were able to get all the routine jobs done like giving the ewes fresh straw bedding in good time with no distractions. After a slow start this morning we then had an another couple of sets of twins born within 5 minutes. All doing well. Later this afternoon we had a set of twins where one is really small...it is amazing how suddenly all your time can be spent shepherding just one tiny lamb. It is a balance between allowing the bond to form between the ewe and her lamb but also making sure that the lamb has had that vital first taste of colostrum. When a lamb is that small it can struggle to even latch onto the teat, so we have had to give it a lot of time and help.

We were joined this afternoon by some friends, Liam who helped us at Abingdon farmers market on Friday, he has 4 ewes of his own to lamb and helped us this afternoon and lambed his first sheep. He had a big smile on his face, as did his two boys Caleb and Lochie who were looking on fascinated by what their Dad was up to.

Molly has had great fun in the sheds too today as you can see from one of these photos. Mel is doing the night checks for us tonight, amazing, so we are turning in.....

Day 4 - Spring Lambing 2012

Clean floors, freshly strawed yards, buckets scrubbed - yes our vet students from the Royal Vetinary College have started and we are being well and truly sorted out! We have had some very strong and determined lambs born today, lots of triplets, twins and a few singles. The new large penthouse pens we have installed are proving very popular with the triplets, however as more ewes lamb over the next few days, the lambing barn will be heaving and lambs will be put into the closest pen available! We would like to turn some lambs outside for the first time tomorrow - one of our favourite jobs, but it might have to wait until Monday when the sun is forecast to come out again. Looking forward to another day . . . after some sleep!

Day 3 - Spring lambing 2012

It's been a long but good day. Nine ewes have lambed today, we have had a couple of disappointing losses, but we have also had some cracking lambs born. Tomorrow we will start to move some of the stronger lambs to a nursery yard, before being turned outside for the first time. Thankfully the grass is just starting to grow, which will be helped by a very light dressing of fertiliser kindly applied by our neigbouring arable farmer. Our tractor still has man flu, so struggling on without that, but the Earth Trust are generously hiring us theirs. In between all of this we've also had a Farmers Market in Abingdon today - thank you to Liam for coming to the rescue and manning the stall. Our vet students, Mel and Akash start tomorrow, can't wait. Early start tomorrow, good night!

Day 2 - spring lambing 2012

It has been a tough day. With still 4 days until the flock should officially start lambing (their due date), any lambs born this early can be small and weak, and that is just what we have experienced today, sadly losing a couple of lambs, we do not have too much to show for all our efforts. Thrown into the mix was attending the Oxford Farmers Market! So a busy day. However, we have ended on a high note, a good strong pair of twins were born at 9pm and up on their feet straight away. What an emotional rollercoster. More tomorrow.

Day 2 - spring lambing 2012

This morning we had a little surprise, well two surprises! 5 days early we had our first set of twins for the spring. More news tomorrow.