Not A Sheep Shearer!

When you keep sheep they're always at the back of your mind. Its a feeling I'd liken to when I was at school and you always had homework due, there always seems like something to do!

This time of year is no exception. Even after a good lambing there are still no end of things to think about.

Jakoti Hand Shears Review

There are certain bits of farming I love and certain bits I hate. Dagging sheep is firmly in the "hate" camp but it's also a fairly essential job to do when it's needed! 

Dagging is the job of trimming around the sheep's bum to remove the muck that accumulates there. 

For years I've struggled with this job, using traditional "Double Bow" type shears. They never cut much, blunt too easily, hurt my hands (and my hands are fairly tough) and won't get through dried muck so you end up pulling that off first. Trouble is until you see something else you carry on with the way you were taught.

There must be an easier way...

Sheep MOT

Sorry for not posting all week, both my wife, my eldest and I have been poorly this week. It's been a bit rubbish really but we're all better now and I'm playing catch up with all my jobs.

The first thing I wanted to do this weekend was to get the sheep in as a big new flock for the first time. I had seen that one sheep was scouring (got the runs) and with how warm it's been I was worried about fly strike. 

Luckily I caught it just in time (sometimes they can infest an animal in as little as a day) and the maggots had only just go to the skin and hadn't drawn blood, by tomorrow I would have to have spent a lot more time picking them off her. As it was I trimmed her wool, trimmed all the muck off and treated her locally for fly strike to stop them coming back (once a sheep has had some they do seem to come back tot he same sheep again and again)

I decided that as they were all to be moved to fresh pasture I was going to worm all the ewes, penned up tight it doesn't take long, but it easier if you have someone marking them for you when you're drenching (I didn't, won;t be long until the girls are old enough). 

I also inspected a few feet and had a look at the lambs. I'm really pleased with this years batch, all the lambs seem healthy and happy, nearly all are a good size and in good condition. 

The last sheep lambed yesterday in fact, keeping me guessing as by my dates the last one should have been no later than the 5th of May! 

I always feel better when I'm up to date on my jobs with the stock, I feel that other jobs can wait but their welfare is the most important. Normally I won't have breakfast until I've been round them in the morning. Even when I was ill in the week I still got up and checked them all as well as feeding them each night, with a runny tummy this isn't as easy as it sounds! 

I'll give some garden updates next, it's growing like crazy at the moment! 

7 Tips For Lambing a Small Flock Outdoors

Things have gone well with the lambing this year so I thought I'd do a video show what I've done to try to organise myself and get things to run a little smoother. 

Let me know what you think!

Is there anything else you'd like me to do a video on?

Life And Death On The Homestead

If you've got more than a few animals then having some die is an enviable part of keeping them. 

I know I've posted before about involving the children in every aspect of what I do here and yesterday was no exception. 

The day before we'd had a triple born, the one wasn't going to be a very good lamb, it couldn't stand and faded pretty fast. I could have messed about with it and tried bottle feeding, but you get a feel for when these things will work or not. By the morning it was dead. 

When I picked my eldest up from school I mentioned this and both girls asked questions about what had happened. Then later when they came to help me feed the ewes they asked to see the dead lamb. I got it out from where I'd put it and laid it on the ground. They both studied it very hard for a few minutes before going off and playing in the trailer.

When we came back in they both told their mum, very matter of fact, that the lamb had died because the mother sheep had had three lambs and didn't have enough milk to feed all three. 

I was really pleased with how they dealt with the subject and how they reacted around the dead body of the lamb. I think children really pick up on the reactions of the people around them, around the animals I'm generally very calm, quiet and move softly (unless I'm trying to catch them) and the girls are the same, they make me really proud around the animals. 

They also know they're not people, far too many people anthropomorphise animals, the children can see that they don't have human emotions. A sheep loosing a lamb will forget about it very quickly, sometimes in a few hours, a sheep in a lot of pain lambing will evoke no emotion from a sheep sat next to it. 

They also know why we keep them and I tell them when we eat one that we've bred here, they seem to like to know where their food has come from even at their young age!

Wow - What A Morning!

Today was the first day back at school after the Easter holidays. That means that my wife is back at work and I'm back looking after the children, whilst I've still got some ewes to lamb. 

So Sunday night I went out to check the sheep that weer still to lamb just before bed time. There was a ewe struggling to lamb so I managed, after much running around, to catch her and get her into a pen I'd made in the field. 

This ewe was not easy to lamb, it was a single and the size of a small Labrador, I really struggle to get him out but managed in the end (the difficulty lies in pulling the lamb out and hold the ewe down on your own). I then moved her off to the shed to a bonding pen and went to bed around 11.30.

My younger daughter then woke me up at 2.30 and I decided that whilst I was awake I might as well go and check them (I had considered not checking them that night as I have so few left to lamb). When I went out there one ewe had had a triple (no one want triples) and the lambs had wondered away from her as she was going a little crazy not being able to find them. I gathered them up and put them in the shed as well, then back to bed.

I had my alarm set for six but with three young children there is little need for an alarm in our house! I got up quickly (for me), I wanted to check on the lambs born the night before and do my other jobs. 

When I went to check on the expectant ewes there was one lambing - damn I thought (or maybe something stronger). I could do without that during the school run. I managed to pen her up (again with much running around) and I had a "bit of an inspection" unfortunately she wasn't far enough on with her lambing and her cervix hadn't opened up fully. So I then sorted out the sheep in the shed, did the green houses, uncovered certain garden crops, fed the chickens and then went inside to see my wife off and sort the kids out, make their lunch boxes, get forest school kit ready etc, give them breakfast, clean teeth and get them dress.

I managed all that done by eight o'clock (we normally leave by 8.30 to get there with plenty of time to spare) so I got the kids to get their wellies on and marched them all down the field. 

The girls were told to look after the boy and make sure he didn't wonder off whilst I set about lambing this ewe. 

The kids were utterly transfixed as I put my hand inside her and after much effort managed to pull out two live lambs in front of their very eyes, my younger daughter told me there and then that she wanted to be a farmer (and a carpenter)!

Then with time against me I managed to get the sheep and lambs up to the shed (as it was raining), round up the children, get them in the car, change out of my overalls (and then clothes when I realised it had soaked through) and drive them to school. The road was then blocked so we had to turn round and go a longer way to school. 

We got there just as the gate was closing, but to be honest in my mind what they saw and experienced in that hour this morning would be far better than what they'd see or do at school, so if they were late I wouldn't have been very bothered! 

With the eldest dropped at school, the middle one then got dropped off at preschool and the youngest and me then went to the community church in the village where I volunteer at a playgroup to get set up for the mornings session! 

In all it was quiet a full on morning! 

It's funny I've always said I want to give my children a similar childhood to my own and I think I was doing just that this morning! 

A Busy Two Weeks

The last two weeks have been pretty full on. 

The early part of last week I took two lambs and a sheep to the abattoir, I worked a few days for customers, we pushed really hard with the patio (post and pictures to follow), the veg garden is being well looked after and the lambs have been coming thick and fast.

I'm having a much better time of it than last year, I'm not sure what that's down to. The weather has been amazing, the sheep seem in better condition, I'm better prepared & organised and I seem to be having a fair bit of luck on my side at the moment. 

That doesn't mean it's been plain sailing. I'm having to lamb a fair few ewes, yesterday morning I even had to get my bricklayer to hold the ewe whilst I lambed here, not what he was expecting to do when he turned up! Some of the lambs are quite big that I'm having to lamb, it's an issue with feeding as I don't know if they're carrying a single or twins so the sheep have the same amount of food. 

Not sure any sheep likes to see these two items come out...

Unfortunately the Easter holidays are over now so I'll be back to full time childcare from tomorrow and I've still got nine sheep left to lamb. This could mean some very tired school runs and a grumpy daddy, but hopefully it shouldn't be too bad. 

I'm currently assessing the flock before I go to bed at 11 and deciding when to get up based on what I see. Normally I get up and walk round them around 3 o'clock in the morning but if I see any signs of lambing then it could be two walk rounds, an earlier one and a later one (2 and 4) and dealing with anything that happens. If they lamb in the night I tend to take them up to that little shed in the one rented field and put them in a bonding pen for the night (if I've got the space) before letting them out in the morning. 

Wish me luck with the nine that are left! 

Lambing problems

I don't dare jinx it by saying things are going okay, but at the moment they don't seem too bad...

The lambs are coming steadily and seem healthy and happy, I've got one inside at the moment who is breathing funny but I've given some medicine and just waiting on that one. 

I have had a couple of tricky deliveries though. 

Both last night. 

One was breach and was coming out the wrong way. I spotted her just as the light was fading, one little hoof sticking out of her. I managed to trick her into a pen with some food before wrestling her to the ground, then I had to try to find the other leg inside her and pull the lamb out once I'd gotten both legs. Because the lamb is the worn way round once you start pull you need to be quick as it'll drown in there once the cord is broken. 

I've never had such a hard one to pull out before, he was huge. I had to put my foot on the ewe to get him out, poor thing. But once he was out I gave him a good rub and he seems fine. 

The second one was from some night time checks last night. I went out at 2am and could see a ewe had started lambing but looked unsettled. I couldn't get near her (a major disadvantage of lambing outside) so I decided to come back in two hours time and see if she'd had the lamb on her own. 

When I came out at 4 in the morning I was gutted to see her running about with just a head sticking out of her, looking all swollen. I thought it's dead for sure but I still need to get it out of her. 

Catching her was another story. I ran round for a bit but decided to get the quad bike out, I've no idea what the neighbours thought to me trying to round the sheep up at half four in the morning, I'm surprised the police didn't turn up in all honesty and do me for rustling!

After about fifteen minutes of her running round and the lambs head making a horrible noise as it slapped her legs as she ran I managed to catch her and pin her to the ground. The the difficult job of lambing her without letting her go! I managed to find a leg a little way back and pulled that and the head, two legs would have been better but the head had swollen and I thought there was no chance of getting that back inside her. Again it took some pulling out but when it came out I was really pleased to see it was still alive.

The ewe tried to bolt at the this point but I pinned her down and checked for any more lambs inside her. I pulled out the twin as well and left her to clean up the lambs as I put the quad bike away. 

By this time I was too fired up to go straight to bed so I thought I'd go and check on them and spray their bellies, it's a good job I did as the one lamb had got up, stumbled ten feet and fell down into the brook, holding it's head just above the water! I rushed in and got it out and then took them up into one of my bonding pens in the small shed I borrow for this month. Rubbed down with hay and making sure they had some milk I then went back to the house. 

It was 5.45 and I wasn't sure if it was worth going back to bed or not! 

Pasturella In Lambs

It's not been a great week as far as the stock is concerned. A bit of a disaster in fact, as I've lost some fat lambs to pasturella. 

I am a lucky guy in most things in life but not when it comes to sheep. 

If there's another way for one of my flock to die that I haven't seen yet then I should know it's only a matter of time. 

I vaccinated my lambs earlier in the year against many of the things that can get them as they're growing, one of the things they were meant to be vaccinated again was pasturella but obviously it isn't 100% successful, as I can prove. 

Taken from google:

 "Pasteurella pneumonia is considered one of the most important infectious bacterial diseases of sheep. It is usually caused by Pasteurella haemolytica, a bacteria that is a normal inhabitant of the upper respiratory tract of the sheep."

The main trouble with it is how fast the animals go downhill, I was talking to another Shepard and he said that after a cool evening we had the other night he found 7 dead the next morning and a friend of his found 10 dead in one field. It can happen over night and as I check my animals twice a day it's hard for me to accept that a healthy animal can just die like that. 

I managed to save one with a course of antibiotics as I caught it early enough but a few more have not been so lucky, the worst is I had been planning on selling them as store lambs a few weeks ago but I'd been working on the extensions so much I hadn't got round to it. As they had plenty of grass and they all seemed healthy I wasn't in too much of a rush. 

But, like with all things, I try to keep a positive outlook, but the sheep do make it hard for me sometimes. 

On a slightly crazy note when I've been dealing with these lambs this stupid song has been going through my head, only with the lyrics changed ever so slightly. 

Good Advice About Sheep

Yesterday I posted a rather down hearted post about keeping sheep. 

Reading the comments was great, some from both sides of the fence and there was one that really struck a cord with me from "Mr Home Maker" It read-

"...and then there is the continuation of shepherding/husbandry skills from one generation to another - it's not all about $$"

That's it. 

To be honest I need to keep sheep for nothing more than that. 

I want my children to have a similar "extra" set of skills when they're adults to what was given to me. 

Are Sheep Worth It?

The sheep are causing me trouble again this year. I seem to be having a run of bad luck with them lately, but this week has been particularly bad. 

One for the sheep managed to get into the lamb creep, where I've been feeding the lambs a mix of rolled oats, barley and beans. This feed is great for the lambs as it reduces their dependence on their mothers whilst still allowing them to fatten quickly.

Unfortunatly when this ewe got in there it didn't know when enough was enough and ate more than it's fill. It then got out and drank loads of water, this made all that grain in it's stomach expand and ferment.

When I found her she was pretty unresponsive, couldn't get up and was bloated. I tried everything to get the food and gas out, even giving her a drench with bicarb, oil and water which is meant to help get rid of the gas. I also made her swallow a plastic tube which is meant to do the same thing. Unfortunately, although I tried my best she still died. Apparently the stomach keeps expanding and crushes the major organs.

This hasn't set me in a great mood for the week.

Sorry for the selfie, this was taken at nine on Friday night after I discovered orf on some of the lambs.
Happy face

Then when checking the sheep the following morning there's a lamb looking sorry for itself, it's sick with something and to make matters worse there's the early signs of orf; a scab in the corner of his mouth. 

Orf is a perpetual pain with sheep as it'as easily spread around the flock. That meant that Friday night I had to get them all in and go through the lambs to make sure not too many had it. Not how everyone wants to spend their Friday night I'm sure! 

The lamb is now on a course of treatment and looking a little better, but it'll probably still die! 

I also had to do the second course of vaccinations for the lambs this weekend. 

With so much work and so little return I do frequently questions if they're worth it. That said I do enjoy having the land and when I'm not working full time and my work load is lower the jobs won't seem s quite so bad. 

What do you think? Would you keep sheep if you had the chance?

Vaccinating Lambs and Tailing Sheep

 Last Sunday I had a fair few working here. My dad and brother had come to give me a hand with all the drainage/clearance work we were doing in preparation for the extension.
Nick, A young lad who sometimes works on my fathers farm, also came to help. He really keen on helping with anything sheep, and has some of his own, so I seized the opportunity and got him to help me vaccinate the lambs as they're at the age where they should have their first stage of injections.

Nick and me - stupid hat optional.

These injections are nuder the skin, I bought a special syringe for the job that automatically fills after each injection and has a cap on the top so it sterilises each time as well, clever stuff but it did take me a little while to figure out! 

Treating feet for scald due to the long grass

Whilst we were doing that we also checked every lambs foot for scald and treated them locally rather than treating every animal en mass. 

 I also took the decision to tail all the sheep. This is a job that Nick was dead keen to do, so I caught and held the ewe whilst he used his battery trimmers to dagg them. 

It's around the time of year when fly strike will become a problem, so rather than chemically treat them with a fly repellent (which I will have to once they've been sheared next month), dagging them removes all the muck they've built up over winter, which in turn removes where the flys will lay their eggs. I like to think it's a fairly proactive approach that reduces my need of chemicals, although I'll still have to keep a careful watch for maggots.

Lambs waiting for their mummies. 

The lambs are looking pretty healthy and they've started to eat their creep feed as well. Hopefully these lambs will finish faster this year than last.

Anyone else been tailing sheep or vaccinating lambs?

Temporary Water Job

 The one field I rent hasn't got a water supply. 

To combat this I use a "water cube", which holds a fair amount of water, but I have to pick it up with the tractor, fill it up, then take it back down to the sheep. A bit of a hassle and they seem to be drinking a fair bit at the moment, what with the hot weather and still having their woolly jumpers!

Water cube

 The field next door has a water trough but it's some distance away from where I want it (the other field also has a brook but it's fenced one side so this field has no access. So I decided the other night to run a temporary water line to the cube to save using the tractor and make things a bit quicker and easier. 

The hose pipe goes over the bridge to the brook

Runs up the field 40 yards

Changes over to alkathene pipe (as I did't have enough pipe of either).

The alkathene then runs up the field some more

To the other water trove that's been disconnected. 

I normally hate temporary jobs, but this is one that should save me a lot of time in the long run. If I owned the field then I'd add water straight away, but as it's rented it's really not worth it. 

Anyone else make do with temporary jobs to provide water to their stock or crops?

Whilst I Was Off On A Jolly...

My wife posted this picture on Facebook yesterday with a caption about being left to deal with the sheep whilst I was off on a jolly (more on that tomorrow but I had an amazing day learning about market gardening)! 

The ewe in the picture had had two lambs (luckily no assistance needed) and my wife dealt with them and checked the sheep for me throughout the day, as well as feeding them in the afternoon. All with three children in tow!

She even sprayed the lambs bellies whilst carrying Alistair! 

 She even goes on to beat that today when doing her checks (I'm still having to go to work at this time so she's doing a few checks in the day for me whilst we wait for the last ones to lamb) she notices that the new mother had only one lamb with her, she found the other by the brook, cold and shivering. So I came home (luckily I was only working in the next village) and got her into a bonding pen with both lambs (the ewe not my wife), this was after about half an hour running round a field swearing and wanting to throw my crook at it. 

She was not keen on her second lamb and promptly set to try and kill it, the lamb was in desperate need of a drink so rather than mess around I rolled the ewe over and let him have his fill before putting her in an adopter pen, where hopefully he'll pick up her sent and she'll accept him over time. 

I'm sure that if my wife hadn't been really observant and spotted it when she did then the lamb would have passed the point of no return shortly afterwards. It's amazing how much she's learning about sheep and the things that she tells me she's seen on her checks. 

I'm always very aware that I've pushed my wife into this lifestyle, but it makes me very happy to see how well she adapts to it (whether she wants to or not!). 

I'm a very lucky man!

New Lambs Moments After Birth

I had to lamb a ewe this morning. I'd been up in the night to check on her but she wasn't ready until about nine this morning when it took me about half an hour to catch her! (they don't know what's good for them!). 

I got her in because I could see she was struggling. She was a big ewe and the lambs were going to be whoppers. I started to lamb her straight away. 

The first took some serious pulling out, and I didn't want to rush it and hurt her so after about five minutes he came out but a little dopey from the journey! The second was much harder as he had his head back. It took me ages to get his head back round as each time I got near to rearranging him she would push again and I'd be back to where I started. I eventually managed to turn him round inside her enough  to get my hand on the one side of his head to line him up. Grabbing both feet then I pulled him out, checking all the time that the head was still in the right place. 

I think both the ewe and I were shattered afterwards. By the time I got the lamb out I was out of breath and I was sweating, even though the frost was still on the ground and I was just still in a T shirt. 

At least it was a positive outcome to this lambing! Both lambs are up and out in the field now. 

Pictures With Blinkers

The picture below is a great example of looking at a photo and not knowing what is going on in the rest of the scene. 

Two happy girls sat on a bag of corn watching what's going on.

Just out of shot is their dad and granddad dragging a dead sheep out of the shed while they watch onwards!

You can't buy an upbringing like this!

Sheep Prolapse

Ah the joys of spring, 

Crisp mornings, 

The warm afternoons, 

The lambs bleating, 

The sheep trying to push her own insides out. 

Makes you glad to be alive.

It's the second sheep to prolapse now so I'm a little worried. They don't seem too fat so I'm not sure what's causing it really. I managed to push it all back inside her, let her have a good wee (as they can't when it's all pushed out) and fix a harness on to her.

The harness or trusses give the ewe some extra support and help to keep things where they should be, although it can still pop out now and again. The one in the picture above had damaged her insides slightly (or reed as we call it) so I'll keep a close eye on her now and make sure she gets any medicine she needs. 

The lambs keep turning up though we've had another double and two more singles so far. Pretty poor average (two lambs a sheep would be perfect). But all healthy and happy and lambed themselves so that's all that matters. 

Sheep Bagging Up

I've found the last few days really interesting on the blog and I've deliberately not replied to comments as I think all that needs to be said has been said. But I really appreciate everyone's input, be it positive or negative, and I thank you all for that. 

But back to normal service.

The sheep are due to lamb quite soon. Only one I have seen looks like she is starting to "bag up" where their udders and teats start to grow in size as they come on to milk, a sure sight that a lamb is not too far away.

On there way to the trove to be feed

Currently they're still over wintering on some grass my father rents but they'll be back here in a couple of weeks, which means somehow I've got to figure out where we're going to lamb. It's looking like outside and in a 16ft by 12ft lean-to at the moment, but I'm sure I'll manage.

We've been feeding them a couple of buckets of oats per day and they've really gained condition, hopefully it won't have made the lambs too fat (as it makes them harder to come out) but only time will see on that one. 

Has anyone else ever lambed outside? 

Preventative Treatment For Fly Strike

This is a post I meant to post last week as I treated the ewes last Sunday for fly strike. 

I decided with the hot sticky weather that was forecast to treat the ewes for a  fly strike preventative, I'd already done the lambs a few weeks previous, but the ewes didn't have enough wool at the time so they had to wait until their coats came back a little bit. So instead of going back inside when I came back from work on Sunday (at 6.30) I went and got the sheep in straight away, sometimes if I stop I find it hard to get going again - so best not to stop!

The treatment is stained blue so I know where I've done - it only stays like this for a day.

It didn't take long to do once I got set up. When doing anything like this it's best to push the sheep up into a smaller pen so they can't run away as much. I donned my waterproof trousers (which made the job very warm to say the least) and sprayed the ewes down the back and across the bum. 

The treatment is meant to keep the flies away for 6-8 weeks, and although I'll still be checking for it, it's one less thing to worry about when it's hot and humid, which it certainly was last week! 

Doing this job is much easier and safer than the old sheep dips that we used to use, no animal wanted to go in it so you ended up chucking every one in and get covered yourself! Luckily I was only young at the time when we used to do that so I used to be stationed well back from the dip!

Who else can remember dipping sheep and is there anyone that still does it?

Lameness In Sheep - CODD

Scald and foot rot are two conditions that sheep farmers have to get used to dealing with. I feel that I've gotten my sheep in more days that I haven't lately to make sure I'm being proactive with my animals health and trying to stop any of them being lame. 

We've just topped half the field the sheep are in as well to remove a lot of the stalky grass as this can sometimes lead to the animals getting getting an irritation between their hooves (which can then lead to foot rot or scald).

Sprayed up to stop anything else getting in there.

One ewe has had a bad foot for a few days and my treatments haven't been working so I decided to ring the vet and describe the symptoms. He says that it sounds like CODD, and on looking at pictures of it I can say that he nailed it straight away as the problem is at the top of the hoof rather than coming from the middle, I took in a picture and he confirmed this.

This morning I got the sheep in (again!) and I have treated her with prescribed antibiotics from the vet. Hopefully this should sort her out.

I hope people don't mind me putting things like this on my blog. I want to show the complete picture of what I'm up to here. The good and the bad and I want to show that there is a lot of work that goes into caring for animals that most people don't see! I sometimes think that people think you leave the animals in the field and just harvest the young for meat when the time is right - they couldn't be more wrong!