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.
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.
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.
OK you’re right, it’s a bucket with teats to feed orphan lambs. To me though it’s the answer to a good night’s sleep. With Rosie not having any milk at all, that means we need to feed her twins every few hours and that means we’re getting very little sleep, exacerbated by almost no sleep on both Monday and Tuesday. Something had to change or we’d be on our knees before lambing finishes.
Rosie’s twins took to the bucket pretty straight away. Spot, the twin with a black spot on it’s front left leg, gorged big time. She was so bloated she went and lay in the corner of the shed for the next 4 hours to sleep off her huge meal.
On Sunday night we had 6 lambs all was progressing well. Working off the tup date we were expecting the bulk of the ewes to lamb during the week. What we didn’t expect was 8 ewes to lamb in 36 hours! Hattie was the start off at 03:30 on Monday morning. She looked like she could lamb at any moment, and having lost two lambs earlier in the week, we were checking Hattie every half hour. 
By 06:30 she’d been straining for 30 mins but nothing showing, on investigation I found 4 front feet and no heads. After a bit of rummaging around and help from Jackie we got two lambs both fit and well. Just as that was over both Sally and Snowflake started to lamb. Amanda was looking after Snowflake and I had Sally. Both needed some help, both had twins. Not long after Ebony had triplets. Triplets aren’t ideal as the ewe can only rear 2 lambs so the choice is take one away and either foster it or bottle feed. The other choice is to bottle feed all three.
Tuesday 03:00 it started all over again with Rosie who had twins. Unfortunately she had no milk so that’s another set of twins to bottle feed. The maternity was rapidly filling up! Later that morning Jet started. It’s her first lambing and she’s quite small, although she needed a little help, the twins are fine. Jet doesn’t have much milk either so another set of twins that need a top up bottle. That’s 7 that need a bottle every few hours.
The other girls lambed at rather more sensible time of day.
Apologies we’ve been remiss and not updated the blog for a few weeks, my excuse, Lambing. Lambing has taken over our lives for the last 5 weeks, we only have a small flock but we’ve had time for nothing else. Guinness (our black and white cat) is most put out, as he thinks we should be at his beckon call.
I’ve been up at 3:00am every night since we started. Initially it was just to check the ‘to be’ ewes. I’d stagger across the yard bleary eyed in my dressing gown and wellies, not a pretty sight, not there’s anyone to see me, to check all was OK. Two weeks in and the triplets appeared on the scene which meant I had to get dressed and wake up a completely different proposition all together. Red, Blue and Chalkie (we colour coded them to ensure they all got milk) are all doing well, so well that I had my first full night’s sleep on Saturday; bliss. We were feeding the triplets every four hours day and night. Add that to twice a day feeding the ‘to be’ ewes, the just lambed ewes, the rams, last years lambs, the pigs, walk and feed the dogs, plus on average a ewe would lamb every day there’s only just enough time to have a bite to eat!
Has it been worth it, yep it’s great to see the lambs skipping and jumping, makes the sleepless nights worthwhile. Stand by for a barrage of cute lamb pictures. I will create a page to introduce yo to some of the flock.
Dumblehole 