May is a great month on the farm. The cattle are starting to lose their winter coats and beginning to look like they are wearing a mink coat. As I write, I think they wish they had a mink coat on as it is lashing with rain and freezing cold. We sent off a few cull ewes last week, which is never a great thing, but they have to go if they are no longer able to get in lamb and/or rear lambs successfully. Tough decision sometimes but always the right one. We have just a few remaining lambs from 2014 which are now a year old and are commonly referred to as ‘hogget’. There are many interpretations of the word hogget, but the dictionary defines it as a young sheep before its first shearing. I believe it is the best lamb you can eat as it is more mature, and the last remaining few will be slaughtered for meat and for sale from the farm – just delicious!
I mentioned last month that the skill now on the farm is to keep everything alive. It would be wrong of me to paint a rosy picture each month as problems do occur. It happened last week when for no apparent reason I found a dead ewe in the field. Obviously there was a reason, but it is not economic for one isolated case to have a post mortem. Thankfully her lambs are well grown and got weaned earlier than the others. What do we do with such a ewe? The Devon casualty service is excellent and come and pick the ewe up and take it away for incineration. Hey ho, life goes on.
Finishing on a positive note, the lambs are growing on well and have been wormed. The ewes have all been foot trimmed and the grass is growing like mad. Nell’s puppies are divine and are now six weeks old and really into mischief – by next month I hope they are all settled into their new homes.
Janet East
