Well - two wet and windy months later and I can happily update that after scanning just over 100 ewes today all the tups have done well, and Toddy has four sets of twins and four singles due so far, with five more shetlands to scan in early February, though he has also been running with eleven of our smaller ewe lambs too, in the hope of giving them a small lamb for an easy first lambing.
Over fifty ewes have been housed for three weeks now, as we battled constantly with muddy fields and the threat of flooding. The remainder have constant access to a shed with haylage feeders and it is amazing how much they use it. It makes all the difference to them to be able to lie down somewhere dry.
A lot of our sheep have suffered a terrible eye infection known as 'pink eye', caused largely by the wind and rain (storm blindness) - we treat with various different antibiotics, creams and sprays, and in the worst cases long acting antibiotic injection. Some really struggle to fight it off and need extra special care - but we are good at that here, so our vet says anyway!!

Todhill Singleton

At the Rare Breeds sale at Carlisle in September, we bought a shetland ram to run with our ever increasing number of pedigree shetland ewes. He is black and polled, which means he is naturally without horns. Hopefully we will be able to show him and one or two of the ewes. We have done a little bit of halter training but will do more when they come in for lambing next spring.

Autumn update

After a very wet August and September, the early part of October had a very warm spell which gave the grass another growth spurt so although the fields are still very soggy there is a bit of grass about for the various groups of ewes, some running with tups since 13th October. The cows and calves are in now but the in-calf heifers are still out, and the blue greys are still on their scabious marsh field. A trip to Newcastleton in Scotland has resulted in six new additions to the cattle herd, three heifers the same age as the fen group, and three babies, only six months old.

On a brighter note......

The Blue Grey heifers are doing really well, grazing a rough pasture at the far end of the farm. This pasture has quite a lot of Devil's Bit Scabious, a host plant for Marsh Fritillary butterflies, and Natural England are keen for us to manage this pasture in such a way as to maximise both the plant and the butterfly. This involves grazing with a small number of cattle over a long period of time to create a mosaic of different lengths of grass, flowers and other desirable species. Top photo is Tinkerbelle, bottom one is Breeze.

A difficult moment

Still waiting for the last heifer to calve - we have five calves so far. Unfortunately, Chrisna, one of our older pedigree Saler cows lost her calf after a extra-long pregnancy and a breech birth. Kev and I were both devastated as this is the first calf we have lost in all our calvings since taking over the farm. The calf was very big though, and obviously late (about two and a half weeks by my reckoning) and although the vet got him out fairly easily once he had found both legs, he had swallowed a lot of fluid and just never got going with suckling. Chrisna has had some antibiotic treatment and a week on straw and water diet to try and dry up her milk. We did not fancy trying to adopt a calf onto her as she wasn't too motherly with her own in the time he was alive, so she will just go out with the dry heifers and back to the bull in July.

Some photos from lambing time

A few photos:- a shetland stands proudly with her twins, a lamb hiding in a feed ring, two jacobs with their black charollais x lambs and the first one to lamb, Eve with her twins ready to go out to grass.

A lovely straw bed ready and waiting

I have spent this last week getting the large lambing shed mucked out - Kev loves the mini-digger we have on hire as it makes things like this so much easier. I then hot pressure washed it and sprayed it liberally with disinfectant. Two of our girls were in a little shed as they have been lame and somewhat under the weather, so after bedding it up this morning with lots of straw they have the privilege of the shed to themselves tonight. Tomorrow will see a lot of the triplet-carrying ewes come in plus up to a dozen of the first to lamb. Its just that it keeps raining and I need to preserve some grass for after they have lambed. There is enough mud about for now!

Scanning

The boys have done a good job and despite all the snow and ice and desperate temperatures the girls are having plenty of lambs. There are 14 sets of triplets due, with several of the usual suspects - Gizmo, Blanche, Daisy, Sacha and Stiffie all had triplets last year too! These girls have been separated out into a small field and are starting to get a few high protein ewe rolls to help them along. There are 73 sets of twins due, 16 having singles and some of this years lambs -12 of them - 10 having singles and the two black ones out of the jacobs, Jem and Jet, are having twins. There is lots of work to do yet, as all the sheds need cleaning, washing and disinfecting, and the triplet group need to come inside around mid-February - possibly sooner if the weather stays wet.