The Resident Vandal arrives and the Clash of the Rams

The Resident Vandal arrived, along with Kiera Dog (KD), on Friday afternoon. Holly, Deefa and Kiera then spent a "mad half hour" chasing around in the yard, to finally collapse, in KD's favourite place, the mat in front of the aga.
Finally, it would appear, that the fine weather has arrived, well for the weekend at least. It was good to be able to wander around without a waterproof coat, even the strong wind was welcome as it was helping to dry the land.
The resident vandal and Tim spent most of Saturday attempting to remove the clutch of a Peugeot 307 and Denise and the resident vandal's wife checked on the newly planted hedge to replace missing rabbit guards and straighten canes and also attempt to cut the grass in the wood area, but the handle on the ground clearer decided to part company with the rest of the machine. Another job for Tim to do, weld it back to the frame again!!!!!!!
Sunday was the day for casting the lambs from the ewes, but before we could bring the ewes and lambs into the barn for shedding we had to move some sheep around. It becomes a game of chess, ensuring we move the sheep only once, but leaving the correct races clear to put the next set of sheep into the correct paddocks.
So first we had to move Charlie and Cecil back in with the rest of the boys. Charlie and Hector had already seen each other from either sides of the fence, so we hoped that putting them together should be relatively easy! Cecil decided to head butt anyone who made any move towards Charlie!!! and Cecil is the quiet one!!! Charlie and Hector decided to have a stand off, there was a clash of horns, resulting in Hector loosing one of his horns, he then head butted Charlie in his side, at which point Cecil joined in!!!! The result is that Charlie is now top ram, Hector looks lop sided with only one horn. Angus, Alex and Archie the Corridale weathers are playing the diplomatic game of not showing who they want to be pals with in case they pick the wrong one and have to deal with Cecil.
So the boys were moved leaving the path clear to move May and Dougal in with the ewes all be it across the girl alpaca's field, again easy we thought!!!! All we had to do was catch May and walk her across the field, May had other ideas, some how or other she jumped between the netting and top wire into the girl's field, and decided to play with the alpacas, so we decided to move Dougal in the hope that May would follow, she did in a fashion, the only thing that had gone well so far.
Getting the ewes and lambs into the barn, was relatively easy, rattle a bucket of sheep nuts and they come running, the trick is not to stand in the way, other wise you will get knocked over in the rush. Once they were all in the barn, the next thing to do is to go and have a cup of tea and let the sheep calm down.
As well as sheding the lambs from their mums their ear tags putting in and so whilst we had them all in it was a good opportunity to do all the sheep's feet and give them all a dose of selco+. One or two of the ewes are looking a bit thin and so we took a note of their ear tag numbers and before we put them to the tup we will "condition score" them and if they are too thin they will not be put to the tup. But in fairness to them they are "not in the first flush of youth" and have had been feeding twins. A month on good grass and they will start to put the weight on.
So the lambs are in the back field and the ewes are in their original field, which is short of grass, so their milk will dry up quickly, aided by a homeopathic spray. The ewes will stay in this field for a week and then they will be moved into one of the fields that has some fresh grass. After a month we will put all the ewes and the lambs back together.
But for the next few days, we will have to listen to the ewes and lambs complaining and in true fashion it's the male lambs that complain the most, obviously "mummies boys". So we want some dry but coolish weather for a couple of days so we don't have to open the windows and listen to the lambs complaining. But (un)fortunately the forecast is fine until Thursday, but you know the weathermen they have been know to be wrong.
As the Resident Vandal is here all week hopefully lots of work will get done, we will wait and see what happens. "I have a little list" - as they say in true Gilbert and Sullivan style!!!!!
More next week
Denise