Hand Clipping Sheep

It's been a while since sheep have featured on the blog and I should say that these aren't mine! 

 

Some smallholder friends were struggling to get anyone to shear their sheep. The trouble is they only have 5 pet sheep. I lent them some hand sheers but I think a mixture of worry and lack of experience put them off. 

Least Number Of Animals Since 2012

I realised the other day that we currently have the least number of animals we've ever had in the last seven years. 

We're down to four laying hens and a little chick I hatched at the local school who they named "Gary".

Not Renting Land Anymore And Where Are The Sheep...

Something I've been putting off writing is how last year, towards the end of the summer, I sold the sheep.

Removing gates and other bits from the rented field

I've been feeling guilty about not blogging about it but also I've not been sure what to write.

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...

Lamb By The Fire

One lamb hasn't fared so well in the weather last night and I don't hold out much hope.

Got him by the fire warming. My youngest thinks this is incredible and we're struggling to get him to leave the lambs side.

I'm annoyed at myself as I noticed him being a bit doppy last night but when I lifted him and saw he had a full belly I just assumed he was kind of "milk drunk" as he was lay next to his mum and still walking around when I put him back. Noticed this morning the ewe was over the other side of the field while he was still lay where he was at 3 this morning when I did my checks. The constant wet weather has made him go down hill fast. 

Fingers crossed a bit of a warm by the fire might help him. He hasn't got his head back so that's a positive.

*lamb update*

I'm afraid the lamb hasn't made it.

When I brought him in the house I knew his chances were slim. You develop a sixth sense of when something is going to survive or not but you always try no matter how rubbish the odds.

I could hear that rattle on his chest, the tell tale sign of pneumonia. I gave him the right antibiotics and plenty of warmth and comfort but unfortunately I just didn't catch it soon enough.

Now I have to make sure the ewe doesn't get mastitis, as sometimes twin lambs have a side they drink from so the other lamb will only be pulling from the one.

Never sure how much I should share on the blog. But it seems right to share the lows as well as the highs, to save looking at it through rose tinted glasses.

It does leave you feeling shitty no matter how often you deal with these types of things.

I can remember spending hours in the lamb shed trying to get sickly ones to drink or pull through when I was a child.

Ewe With Four Lambs

So looks like I'll be doing a spot of bottle feeding this week. Second ewe has lambed and unfortunatly had four! They've all survived so far but she's not going to have enough milk to feed them all. So I've bought some colostrum and powdered milk.

They've all had a feed tonight and got full bellies, I'll just have to keep my eye on them now.

Must be 18 years since I last reared a bottle fed lamb. Let's hope the next sheep has a single and I can adopt one over!

And So It Begins!

First lambs born in the night. A good sized double, no assistance needed and two full bellies! Shame they found the muddiest patch of the Field next to the brook!

Prepare to be bored of sheep and lamb pictures over the next month! 

Guess What's Back...

So yesterday I picked up the sheep from my fathers farm and transported them back to our smallholding. 

I'm down to 25 ewes now, but hopefully they're all in lamb and they're all proven mothers. I was worried I was going to get stuck getting them in the field, I'd borrowed a stock box from one of my dads friends and it would be embarrassing if I couldn't get it back to him. 

Luckily the truck proved it's worth and got it over the fields no problems, even with the rain the night before, it does make it easier to move sheep! 

We then had to move a few things around for the sheep, setting up troughs and a few other bits and bobs. The girls moved the one, but they did moan about it! 

Feeding time! 

The boy also showed how fearless he is of them and ended up down the bottom of the six acre field herding the whole flock back round to me on his own! He was so pleased to see his sheep back. when he saw them he held his hands wide and shouted "MY SHEEEEEEEPPPPPP!" with a huge grin on his face! A happy little two year old!

So today brings a day of fetching some more stuff back from dads, we even found a old hay rick in the orchard so I'm going to try and do that up to make it usable again as there still isn't much grass on the fields.

Slow Cooked Mutton

Earlier in the year we had a ewe killed. 

The price for cull ewes was rubbish at the time and in all my years of keeping sheep I'd never tried mutton and I quite fancied giving it a try. Mutton is a popular meat all round the world, just in the UK we seem to think that sheep should only be eaten as lamb. 

The ewe was three years old, fairly big and as you'd expect, had a good layer of fat on her. Mutton has a well placed reputation for being fatty, all this means is you need to be careful in how you cook it. 

Talking to friend we decided to make a rub for the meat and cook it long, slow and low. Making the rub in the recipe above (my mate had to come over as I didn't have many of the ingredients!), we then covered the meat, scored the fat and set it in a low oven (160) uncovered for a little while then covered with some water in the tray until the fat started to come out. 

After an hour or so I lifted it up onto a rack on the tray to continue cooking (still covered), this bit is essential because I wanted the fat to cook out of the meat. 

The joint was in the oven for a little under five hours and was cooked to perfection (if I do say myself). I did brown it off a bit at the end by cooking with no cover. 

as you can see the half inch layer of fat in the bottom of the pan shows that this is the right way to cook it! 

The meat just fell off the bone.

I served it chopped up on some rice with steamed french beans (french beans with everything at the moment!), it was beautiful. So tender and so full of flavour. 

Who else likes to eat mutton? 

How do you cook the big joints?

Shepherdesses

The most common question I'm asked is how do I fit so much in when I've got the kids full time?

Simple, they do it with me when they can.

Last night I got the sheep in to check them over. It's proper fly strike weather and the sheep were twitching enough to get me worried. 

Turns out they were absolutely fine, not a maggot in sight but it pays to be careful in this weather. 

The girls weren't going to stay inside, not when there's chance of a ride on the quad bike (the boy was napping and mum was home).

My younger daughter won't leave the bike if she can help it, she comes for the round up and beeps the horn whilst my eldest mans the pen and helps me funnel them in.  

waiting for another go on the bike

We always go for a ride after we've finished, just a quick blast round the field with one child shouting faster and the other saying to slow down!  

Not sure how old they should be before I get them their own motor bikes! I know I was always a little crazy on them! 

Who else can remember being a kid and going on the back or front of a motor bike or quad? I certainly can! 

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! 

Vlog Episode 4 - Homestead Tour

It's been a while since I did a video and with so much going on at the moment I thought it might be good to walk you all around some of the homestead. 

This video is just filmed as it is, very little editing except where I ran out of memory as I was looking at my beetroots! 

Let me know what you think and what you'd like to see in the next one and I'll try to include it. 

Or let me know if you'd like a video on anything in particular.

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! 

Started Lambing

And so it begins! 

I was almost starting to doubt myself as lambing was taking so long to arrive! 

Yesterday I had two doubles, both sets of lambs were healthy and strong and had full bellies when I found them, so I was happy. 

The kids were pleased to see them as well! 

Second pair found on my walk round the sheep at 12 last night.

If it continues like this I'll be a happy man! 

Guess What's Back...

A beautiful spring day to have the sheep back on the homestead. 

Dad brought them over yesterday with my brother.

They're bagging up and could start lambing any day now! 

Could be a tough few weeks ahead! 

Rest is for the weak anyway!