217 who we thought was barren but as we were checking her over noticed that her udder was swelling up. She hadn’t had a lamb last year and was ill back in November hence we didn’t hold out much hope.
Anyway she popped out a nice set of twins last Thursday morning by herself out in the field. With the weather being so mild we’ve left her out with the rest of the flock.
Lambing is over for another year, all the ewes bar, or should that be baa, one lambed in a 3 week window. Tracey clearly had other ideas and skipped a couple of cycles and lambed on Sunday. All good though nice strong single lamb. We’ve kept her close to home until the lamb’s a bit older and then we’ll bring the flock back home and she can rejoin the flock.
This morning Tracey decided that the poly tunnel was the place to go for a good feed and pushed the door open. For some bizarre reason she likes the dried out cabbage leaves.
When Stig, our toller, was just over a year old we had a cade lamb in the kitchen. She was called Xero as we didn’t hold out much hope she’d pull through. Her mum had mastitis and her sibling unfortunately only lasted a couple of days.
Stig took parenting duties extremely seriously mothering Xero throughout the two weeks she was in the kitchen and looking out for her when she was in the field with the rest of the flock.
Every lambing since Stig is desperate to have a cade lamb to look after. He checks all the lambs to make sure they’re OK, poking his head through the gate when the lambs come over. He has a healthy respect for the ewes keeping well out of their way.
Fortunately for us, if not for Stig, no cade lambs this year.
Lambing is coming to a close, only 7 ewes left to lamb. Although it’s felt like a hard slog lambing has gone well and the weather has been benign, we must just be getting old lol.
It’s been fairly quiet for a change. The tups went in at the start of October, Spot farrowed and the odd tree fell over in the October storm. It was the rain that caused most hassle in the Autumn, we had our highest October rainfall and November was above average as well. The pasture has stood up pretty well but the pig paddocks cut up quickly and in no time turned into mud soup.
Now we’re into winter the days are short, no sooner is lunch over and we need to crack on with the afternoon jobs before it’s dark. Several groups of sheep need hay plus a little cake for the ewes, then onto feeding the 4 groups of pigs and not forgetting that the dogs need a walk as well. After that there’s not much time to do anything else outside. While the ground is sodden I should be repairing fences, it’s a lot easier to bash the posts in when the ground is soft.
Lambing is well underway, the first lamb was born last Saturday and it’s been a steady week. Very easy so far, a couple of ewes lambed over night and we’ve had to bottle feed a set of twins for a couple of days, both on my night shifts.
Yesterday we let the older lambs out as it was warm in the sun and the rain/snow had stopped in the morning. Weather outlook isn’t great so the lambs will have to stay in until it improves or they’re old enough to handle the wind and wet.
Sunday 7 March back at Bromyard for the first market of 2023. Not as busy as December, hardly surprising really as it was quite chilly, on the upside it was dry and everyone traders and punters are friendly and interested in what we do. We only had lamb this time as unfortunately the upgrade works at the abattoir overran and hence the pigs couldn’t go in time. Overall though we sold most of the lamb. We didn’t sell many joints, seems like people are using their ovens less in favour of air fryers.
Amanda could only stay for a couple of hours and needed to get back to check the ewes. Really enjoyable morning the time flew by and looking foirward to the next market on 2 April and we’ll have fresh pork and lamb.
Last Sunday we did our first market ever! Andrew cut and packed the pork and lamb so it was just a matter of setting out the stall. Everyone was really friendly and helpful. Jayne the organiser lent us a gazebo, the other traders chatted and bought some meat from us. The Bromyard residents came out in force and were keen to know what we did. Not only did we sell some meat we enjoyed ourselves. Looking forward to the next one
Xero, our cade lamb from 2 years ago has had her first lamb. Amazingly the little ewe lamb is the spitting image of her mum and is very easy to pick out in the field. Xero has turned out to be a really excellent mum, never letting the little one go very far from her.
Overall lambing has been much easier this year, with fairly mild dry weather and plenty of grass for the ewes. We have our fingers crossed that the benign conditions continue. We now have 30 breeding ewes and 40 lambs with another 12 shearlings to breed from this year. We anticipate selling most of the rams for meat for friends and family and hope to sell some of the pedigree ewe lambs later in the year.
Yogi is our coloured Ryeland tup lamb bred by Widgits. He was born earlier this year so this is his first time. It’s also first time for the shearling ewes all Clifford lambs born last year 2017. You can see Clifford’s distinctive markings in all the ewes.
Zero is special, she’s a cade lamb and almost died. Her mum had mastitis which poisoned her milk, which passed the infection onto the lambs. Unfortunately her sibling didn’t survive but Zero did thankfully. Why Zero? because she had zero chance of surviving.
Dumblehole 