A year ago, we couldn’t have hordes of visitors to the farm for lambing and in 2021 we still can’t. It is so disappointing as it’s just a wonderful time of the year.
The weather has been a blinking nightmare, but we haven’t had the snow thank goodness and if we didn’t have the weather to talk about, what would we talk about. With some 8 days to go before we start lambing, I am starting to get excited, a tad apprehensive as always, but at the end of the day if you’ve put everything in place and are organised, there isn’t a lot more you can do. Just get some early nights.
I had the absolute privilege of working with an unbelievable shepherd in my younger days who
frightened the daylights out of me but by goodness did he know his sheep. I always remember him saying to me “I will show you once, I will show you twice, but if you need showing a third time, then shepherding is not for you”. He would light his pipe, walk away and get on with the job in hand. His shepherding days are now well over but every year he will get a call from yours truly re a problem and sure enough there is always a few thoughts and a few suggestions.
One of my worst nightmares is when a ewe has had some lovely lambs and she decides they are not for her and decides to reject one – why on earth would she decide to do that? There are often some explanations but not always, so they become the beloved bottle-fed lambs which the kids love.
The most important thing, if lambs get rejected, is that they get plenty of colostrum as soon as possible – the first milk from the ewe. Given the ewe won’t stand to let them suckle, a trick taught to me by the “old boy” was to turn the ewe over and sit her on her bottom and put the lambs on the teat for a good suckle – jobs a good’un! Of course, there’s always powdered colostrum as a backup but the ewe’s milk is
the best and its free! Often the dear rejected one becomes an orphan and goes on the bottle but nonetheless has a good life. As is often the case with orphan lambs, I become their mum and they never forget it and will bound up to you in the field for many months to come. My sheepdog never understands why such lambs never do as he says!
If Boris lets us start to return to normal, then I am always happy for anyone to bring their children or grandchildren, or even just themselves to the farm to see the lambs – let’s hope that happens.
Janet
