Sunday 15th April - Berniece has a ewe lamb

When Tim went to give Dougal lamb his 06.30 feed, Berniece had given birth to a beautiful little ewe lamb. As she is a pedigree Shetland she will be staying to increase our breeding ewes. So we will have to come up with a name for her beginning with the letter "D" and associated with either a herb or flower. Hopefully tomorrow they will both go out to enjoy the fine weather.

Tomorrow should see Amber, Lucy & Lottie have their lambs, then that will just leave Layla, Lilly and Amy who are all due over the next few days and by next weekend we will have finished lambing, apart from Winky who is due in early May.

Denise

Photo of Ariadne and her son

Ariadne and her son out in the evening son. She's very protective of him and as yet has not brought him into the barn at feeding time. So we are giving her some feed out in the paddock.

Denise

Saturday 14th April - Visit to the vets & a Farm Sale

Deefa our sheep dog likes to roll in all things smelly, well this time it has got him into trouble. He rolled in some fox poo earlier in the week, we noticed a few bumps on his nose, and then on Thursday we noticed a few scratches. We thought he'd been wearing Grayling, our farm cat. But on Friday when his nose was red, swollen and weeping a visit to the vet was urgently needed. So Saturday morning saw us sat in the vets. Evidently it's mites associated with foxes and Deefa has had an allergic reaction to them. So he's had 2 injections and is now on a weeks course of antibiotics. Because the mites are contagious, Holly our other dog also has to be treated with a preventative treatment. She's not happy!!!!

After taking Deefa to the vets, we went on to a farm sale. It was a change to be able to wonder around in the sun and look at all the bits and pieces of equipment for sale. Normally at these sales we are in full rain gear and trying to find a place to shelter from the wind. We managed to catch up with neighbours and friends. We arrange with Dave "The bunny bopper" to call and cull the increasing number of rabbits on our land. We did buy a couple of piece of equipment, as did our neighbours, so it was ideal that we had taken the trailer. A good day all round

Denise

Friday 13th - 3 lambs

Missy was not due until the 14th, the plan being to put her in a lambing pen today, but when we went to feed Dougal at 06.30, Missy was showing possible signs of giving birth, stretching and staring skywards.

Coming back from walking the dogs with the idea of moving Missy into the barn it was apparent that she was about to give birth in the corner of the field. So we fed the rest of the sheep, by which time the first lamb had been born and the 2nd was on it's way. Five minutes later Missy had her 2nd lamb, both ewe lambs. As the morning was fine and warm we decided to leave them out in the field to enjoy the sun.

Feeding up in the evening we noticed one of the ewes pacing up and down the fence line, at first glance we thought it was Allium and one of her lambs had got stuck in the hedge. But it was Ariadne, she'd given birth to a tup lamb 2 days early. He's a strong young lamb.

So they say that Friday the 13th is unlucky, but we've had a good day. 3 good strong lambs.

Denise

Thursday 12th April

On Thursday morning Beatrix had a tup lamb, he is a full pedigree Shetland ram, so we will have to wait to see how he grows to see if we sell him for breeding or not.

There was a moment of panic whilst Beatrix was giving birth, feet were seen, but she appeared to be having problems getting the head out. So a phone call to our neighbour, Pete, to come and assist. It took him 5 mins to arrive, by which time Beatrix had delivered her lamb, no problems.

As you can see from the photo she is out in the field with her lamb. The weather is so mild, outside is the best place for them both.

Denise

Friday 7th April, 3 lambs and a visit from the vet

The first ewe to give birth on Friday was Astrid, she had a tup lamb, but she didn't cleanse her afterbirth as quickly as she should have, so we called the vet. There should be no problems, and the vet gave her an injection on long lasting antibiotics, which we will repeat in a couple of days time.
The second ewe to give birth was Brazil, she has produced 2 lovely little ewe lambs with some very unusual markings. These ewe lambs are the first of the pedigrees to be born, so we will have to think up two names for them, starting with the letter "D".

If the weather holds, we will be letting these new lambs out into the fields in a couple of days, including Dougal, who is now going through 1 1/2 litres of milk a day. His mother, Anya, comes into the barn at night and lays down by the side of his pen, so we are hopeful that she will keep an eye on him once he's out in the fields.

Next ewe to give birth is Brigid on Wednesday

Denise

4th April - Twins and rejection

Tim went to the barn this morning to find a stray lamb. It would appear that Anya gave birth to twins in the early hours of the morning. A ewe and tup lamb. The trouble being, the little tup lamb appears to have been born "the wrong side of the fence" and as a consequence, his mother has rejected him. We managed to hold Anya and to get him to have a good drink, but she was not happy and at every opportunity Anya would head butt him out of the way. So we had to put him in his own pen for his safety and to let Anya settle down and feed her remaining lamb.
Peace now reigns, but it does mean we have to get a litre of milk into him daily, and for the next 3 days he will be on 2 hourly feeds. From 4 - 7 days the gap between the feeds increases so that he's down to just 4 a day, then just 2 feeds day. He hasn't quite got the hang of the bottle as yet, but I don't think it will be too long before he does. We've called him Dougal.

We let Abbi and her daughters out into the beautiful sunshine we are having at the moment. They have really enjoyed basking in the sun. Though this evening she has brought them into the safety of the barn. If it is as nice tomorrow, we will let Anya out with her daughter. We also penned up Brazil, though she is not due until Friday, she has a limp and we don't want to stress her out too much doing her feet, this close to giving birth. Last year she had triplets and she looks as big this year. We wait and see what happens.

Denise