November 2013

Our Hampshire Down stock ram, Yarcombe Maximus, joined the ewes on the 5^th – and by the 14^th all 12 were sporting emerald green smudges around their nether parts, indicating that Max had been very dedicated in his romantic pursuit! This was a good sign, as it showed that having ‘flushed’ the ewes on our best grass, they quickly came into oestrus once in the presence of the ram. As far as I could tell, only two of the ewes returned to the ram (both within 6 days) following their first encounter, so I have my fingers crossed for a good, tight lambing early next April.

The end of tupping marks a long holiday for ‘Max’, and when he reluctantly leaves the ewes, we give him a good check-over: make sure there are no sores on the brisket area (chest), and that the harness hasn’t chaffed his skin anywhere; we also check his feet, and make sure he’s sound in every way before returning him to his bachelor paddock. A ram will often have lost a bit of condition during tupping, so we give him some good quality hay as the grass doesn’t have a lot of nutrition in it at this time of year. All animals need the company of their own kind, but even though he’s going back to join his old buddies, there’s a danger that they will fight, and rams can to serious damage to one another given the chance! To prevent injury, we pen them tightly together for a few days so that they can’t charge at one another, and hopefully they will sort out the hierarchy so that they don’t fight once turned out together!

With the end of November came one of the highlights in our social calendar, the Hampshire Down Sheep Breeders’ Association Christmas Party – it’s held in November as most HD breeders start lambing in early December! The ewes will naturally take the ram in July, and by lambing so early in the year, the lambs are well grown for both the summer shows and the autumn ram sales. I did consider the ‘lamb and turkey’ Christmas timetable, but the many joys of Spring lambing (leaving the lambing shed at 5a.m. to be greeted by the lark, and turning the ewes and lambs out onto fresh, green grass, to name but two) are some of the reasons I love keeping and breeding sheep, so we’ll stick to our April lambing!

We have two groups of chickens, one a mixed bunch of Light Sussex, Legbar and Marans, presided over by Eric, a handsome but ageing Welsummer cockerel, and the other a small group of four Speckled Sussex hens and their young pugilistic cockerel (called Sunday), who is hastening his journey to the pot by taking every opportunity to fly at me, spurs first, with the intention of inflicting maximum pain!



The weather forecasters have been threatening severe winter weather this year, and although there’s been no sign of it yet awhile, it’s worth taking a few measures to be prepared for the worst and, at the same time, get the chooks into a winter routine that both suits them and saves me a few precious daylight hours to complete all the tasks around the smallholding. You’ll find a number of useful tips on managing your chooks through the winter in our “Things to do This Month” section HERE – most importantly, in frosty weather, check their water at least twice a day to make sure it hasn’t frozen.

The climate this year seems to have favoured a virtual explosion in the wild rabbit population in this area – it almost seems that wherever I look, there is at least one rabbit in view. They may seem innocuous, but en masse, they can do tremendous damage to crops, young trees, and my vegetable garden – which, although fenced with small-meshed wire sunk into the ground, is regularly invaded and plundered by bunnies! Although this is annoying (very), nevertheless, I am dismayed to see that Myxomatosis, or ‘Myxy’, has again infected our local rabbit population. Almost daily we find at least one rabbit sitting hunched-up and not scampering away as we approach. On closer inspection, the telltale swollen, weeping eyes are clearly apparent, and the sick rabbit seems unaware of the presence of a human.

The Myxomatosis virus was introduced in the UK in 1953, and within just two years had infected and killed about 95% of the naïve rabbit population. Undoubtedly, the rapid spread of the disease was aided by human intervention, by moving infected rabbits around the country, but – as with most human attempts to interfere with nature, there were unexpected consequences and several other native species that preyed on rabbits as their main source of food, also experienced a severe knock-back in their population. Over time, rabbits developed a degree of genetic resistance to the disease, and populations again rose. These days, there are sporadic outbreaks from time to time, possibly aided by man, and sadly we have to deal with the sick rabbits. A sharp blow to the head with a heavy spade is quick and humane, but it’s a horrible job nevertheless.

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October 2013

Following the long, hot summer and the frequent, heavy rain through October, the grass put on a tremendous spurt of growth during October, which although not especially nutritious at this time of year, nevertheless gave the ewes a very nice ‘plumpness’ (BCS3-3.5 for my technical readers) ready for tupping!

Max, our 2-year old ram is also in fine fettle having had equally good grazing for the past few weeks, and put though a very vigorous ‘MOT’ at the start of the month. No ram likes to be tipped, and with our Hampshire rams weighing something in the region of 120kgs, it’s not a job I’m particularly keen on either! Max – ‘Yarcombe Maximus’ to give him his proper title, has a very clever trick of fixing his neck that makes it doubly difficult to tip him off-balance. It’s no use pitting my strength against his; he would win hooves-down every time!

How to Tip a Ram

Start with the big boy standing in front of you: hold his head with your left hand and put your right hand under his jaw to turn his neck sharply away from you with one hand; at the same time, place your left knee just behind the ram’s left shoulder while keeping your right leg against his near-side left hip and place your right hand on the ram’s back right over the hips …

… now you’re in the correct position for tipping, continue as follows: turn the ram’s nose away from you towards an imaginary spot just behind his shoulder – as you do this you’ll feel his weight shift against your legs, then push down with your right hand and step your right leg back, this will cause the ram’s back end to sink; carry on pulling the head around, and the ram will find himself sitting on his bum reclining against your legs. In this position you can inspect his teeth, brisket, feet, testicles and penis with ease!
Alternatively, if like me, the above method generally finds me in the mud and the ram steadfastly refusing to sit down, there is an acceptable alternative: stand him against a wall or hurdle then reach underneath his belly, grab his rear hind leg (or both, you’ll develop your own technique over time) and pull it towards you – this should make him sink onto his rump. If he’s really stubborn, get help; if you continue to wrestle with him you will undoubtedly fall down exhausted before he does!

Elsewhere on the smallholding it’s been ‘clear-up’ time. The vegetable plot has had its autumn tidy, leaving just the over-wintering brassicas (Brussels Sprouts, Purple-Sprouting Broccoli and Cauliflowers), and a row of leeks left standing. All the other raised beds have been forked over and the bare soil covered with a thick layer of stable manure (thank you, horses!). I’ve sowed Phacelia as a ‘green manure’ onto one, as much for the pretty cerulean blue flowers as its organic matter when dug in later in the year! The horses also supply a generous quantity of woodchip from the stables that I use to make paths between the beds. The green house has had its annual clear out and clean, and now houses rows of Butternut Squashes (a bumper crop this year) to finish ripening.
We’ve also got the final shots for “Showing Sheep” in the can, including an interview with a specialist sheep vet on aspects of biosecurity at shows, a very important aspect that many feel is sometimes not given the attention it deserves. Our vet discusses the potential disease hazards and describes the preventative measures that can be taken to ensure that, as far as possible, the risks are minimised.

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September 2013

Having spent the best part of the summer and early autumn complaining about the lack of rain and consequent khaki-coloured fields, a little rain and the early-morning autumn dews have produced an embarrassment of grass – acres of the stuff, bright green and lush. You’d think I’d be jumping up and down with joy, but this ‘flush’ of grass has caused a minor digestive upset in some of our ewe flock who, normally as clean as a whistle, had varying degrees of mucky bottoms (ranging from ‘slightly soiled’ to ‘filth-bags’). Bearing in mind their appointment with Yarcombe Maximus on Fireworks night (how appropriate!), and – just as importantly – a visit from an eminent Judge for the Hampshire Down Flock Competition in early October, I really had to get to ‘the bottom’ of the problem!

Scouring in sheep can have a number of causes, the obvious one being intestinal parasites (worms). However, it’s unusual for mature ewes to be affected, as with maturity they normally develop a degree of immunity to the most common parasites. The results of a faecal egg count (FEC), emailed to me within 4 hours of delivering the samples, confirmed that neither ewes nor lambs were excreting worm eggs – in fact, the result was “no eggs seen in sample”. So, the drench gun continues to gather cobwebs in the shed, not having been needed since the lambs had their first and only treatment of the year way back in early June. I haven’t fully calculated the savings I’ve made from using an ‘evidence-based’ worming programme, but at around £25 per litre for a clear drench, I reckon it’s quite considerable, even for our small flock.

This year, for the first time, we needed to vaccinate all the breeding ewes for Toxoplasmosis. This is one of the main causes of abortion in sheep and is caused by a parasite that has a complex life cycle involving rodents and cats. Last year we lost four lambs to the disease, possibly more as it can cause re-absorption of the foetus in early pregnancy. The vaccine is ‘live’ so needs to refrigerated and used within a few hours of delivery. As a live vaccine, it induces a mild form of the disease to stimulate an antibody reaction in the sheep that will protect the sheep for up to two years. It also needs to be treated with great care, as if accidentally self-injected can cause illness, and abortion in pregnant women.

The next day, one of the ewes was on 3 legs, lame as a pear, suffering from scald, which left untreated can develop into full-blown footrot. Given a simple antibiotic injection this would normally clear up in a day or so – but an antibiotic could counteract the effect of the Toxo vaccine. So, however carefully the shepherd tries to schedule what seems to be an ever-increasing list of necessary treatments, nothing can ever take into account simple ‘sod’s law’! (We used a topical oxytetracycline spray to help with the foot problem, and thankfully she was back on her feet in no time).

So, back to the all-important flock competition. This is an annual event that takes place on-farm. Many breed societies organise this type of informal competition, designed to give novices or these unsure about showing their sheep the opportunity to dip a toe into the showing waters! The judge, who travels from flock to flock around the country, views the sheep in their home environment, in their ‘working clothes’. But there are a few ways the canny shepherd can give his or her flock more of a fighting chance of a placing!

1. Clean up any mucky bottoms (jet-washing in the case of our ewes!)
2. Neatly trim tails to emphasise a nice ‘gigot’
3. If your sheep have woolly heads (as ours do), make sure the wool is trimmed from around their eyes
4. Try to separate sheep into groups: breeding ewes, ewe lambs, stock rams, and ram lambs – it’s well worth doing this as the lambs look bigger when not standing next to a mature sheep!
5. If you have undulating land, send the sheep uphill of the judge – again, they look bigger and better viewed from below
6. Pray that none go lame on the morning of judging!

After the judge has had a good look at your flock, offer him or her a nice cup of tea and slice of cake, and take advantage of the opportunity to ask any questions about management and how you might improve your flock.

All summer long we’ve been visiting Livestock and Countryside shows, filming every aspect of showing sheep, from the ‘Child’s Pet Lamb’ class to pedigree ‘Championships’, as well as recording all the stages of preparation beforehand. The experience has given me the urge to have a go, and I hope that when our new DVD “Showing Sheep” is completed (in time for Christmas!), it will inspire a lot more people to think about showing their sheep – from my experience this summer, it’s a tremendously social and fun activity!

And finally, Carole Youngs of The Smallholder Series has written a comprehensive guide to ram selection and management for the autumn edition of Practical Sheep, Goats & Alpacas magazine, which is currently on sale in all good newsagents.

www.smallholderseries.co.uk

 

August 2013

Not a drop of rain fell on Green Farm (now renamed “The Savannah”) during July and August, but thankfully, in the three weeks following haymaking the aftermath had grown considerably so we were able to wean our ewe lambs onto this. Not only is the aftermath the best clean grazing, but some years ago we used a disc harrow on the field, then broadcast white and red clover seed: not only are clovers deep-rooted and therefore relatively drought-resistant, but it’s also a great source of protein to promote good growth in the young lambs.

We weaned the lambs at 16 weeks, which is quite close to puberty for sheep (around 5 months is typical) so the ram lambs were separated from the ewe lambs, and went to join our stock ram and his companion in the only other paddock with any decent grass. While the ewe lambs quietly settled for some steady grazing, the boys indulged in some quite flagrant boy-on-boy sex play for the first couple of days, before they got hungry enough to settle down and appreciate the grass. Thankfully, none of the lambs seemed to notice the lack of their mothers, and we heard hardly any plaintive bleats from either quarter.

Mid-month found me, rubber-gloved, diligently following lambs around their respective paddocks, pouncing to the ground whenever one defecated. I then delivered the random collection of poo samples to our vet, and by 4p.m. on the same day had the results, together with the vet’s recommendation: “90 epg., still a low count. How are they looking? If growing well and dry/no scour suggest re-check in 2 weeks”. For me, this service is probably the most valuable growth promoting and money saving tool in the shepherd’s kit-box. Last month I wrote about the impressive DLG (Daily Liveweight Gain) that our lambs achieved in their first 8 weeks of life. Weaning is a stressful time and coincides with increasing pasture contamination by gut worms, so I’m pleased to say that they’ve maintained their excellent growth rates since weaning. This is due partly to having fit ewes with a good supply of milk to give them a good start in life, partly to inherited genetics from their performance-recorded sire, and partly to our clover-rich pastures – but that’s not all! By regularly monitoring their internal parasite burden and treating when, and only when, the results of a faecal egg count indicates a need, we ensure that our lambs don’t experience any check in their growth, as well as reducing the use of anthelmintics (wormers) and delaying the onset of drug-resistant parasites developing on our farm. In this matter we are very lucky to have a vet who is not only a sheep farmer herself, but is also pro-active in making sure the practice focuses on the needs of sheep farmers, both large and small.

The long, hot summer has seen another sheep pest, the blowfly, having a very successful time. Although we use a ‘pour-on’ IGR – Insect Growth Regulator – on all the stock, a couple of our lambs have been ‘struck’, meaning the flies have laid their eggs on the lamb’s wool (they usually go for lambs with dirty backsides), then when they hatch the maggots will start to burrow into the lamb’s flesh. Thankfully, we spotted two lambs that were scouring slightly (and there are many reasons for this, so don’t always assume it’s due to gut worms!) and were able to clean the just-hatching maggots off the lambs before any harm was done.

Meanwhile, the gaggle of goslings whose progress we have been following are growing up fast, and are now spending their days on rich Somerset pastures. At 5 weeks, they’ve mostly lost their yellow downy baby-fluff, but aren’t quite fully feathered, so this is their ‘transition’ stage, where they still need to come in at night for warmth and for protection from predators. Good husbandry has minimised losses through their most vulnerable stage, and our soon to be released DVD, Poultry on Your Smallholding, will explain how to successfully rear these handsome and profitable birds.

The end of August marks another transition: that from summer to autumn, and the signs of the changing seasons are all around us. Our summer visitors, the swallows, have had an exceptional breeding year here, and the numbers that gather each evening have filled the skies like I’ve never seen before; it’s a fantastic sight to watch them performing graceful aerobatics to catch the flies and midges against the amazing sunsets that the waning summer has brought this year.

It’s also been a bumper year in our fruit and vegetable garden, and we have a remarkable crop of Butternut Squash to squirrel away for winter. Our vintage perry pear orchard is groaning with fruit, and we’ve come to a very amicable arrangement with a local perry-maker that should keep us full of cheer through the autumn and winter evenings ahead!


And finally, Carole Youngs of The Smallholder Series has written a comprehensive guide to ram selection and management for the autumn edition of Practical Sheep, Goats & Alpacas magazine, which is currently on sale in all good newsagents.

www.smallholderseries.co.uk

July 2013

Throughout July I seriously considered renaming our farm ‘Khaki Farm’ to reflect the colour of all our grazing fields! Unfortunately, the lack of rain and any green grass, forced me to review my carefully thought out ‘Grazing Management Plan’ for weaning the lambs at the end of the month. So, rather than stress the lambs even more by taking them away from the ewes AND putting them onto a virtual starvation paddock, we left the happy families together for a couple of weeks longer.

On a positive note, the weeks of sunshine during May and June made the most wonderful hay; we mowed our 7acres on the 5^th and three exceedingly hot days later our barn was full of sweet-smelling meadow hay. Our years of walking and hand-weeding the hayfield has paid off and now we can be confident that it’s free of ragwort, thistle and dock, on which basis we’re able to sell all the excess, at a premium, to horse owners.

In so many ways it’s been a very peculiar year! Mid-month we weighed all our lambs in line with our pedigree Performance Recording; this gives us a really clear idea of how they are performing genetically. As a terminal sire breed, it’s important that the lambs gain weight steadily on mother’s milk and grass alone, and this year they have excelled themselves, giving us confidence that our flock improvement ‘strategy’ is heading in the right direction. Our best-performing Hampshire Down lambs achieved 0.43kgs Daily Liveweight Gain (DLG) from birth to 13 weeks off grass, and surprisingly, the best-performing lambs were all females!



Our “Poultry on Your Smallholding” programme is getting tantalisingly close to completion, but as with any livestock project, the filming schedule is largely dictated by the rhythms of nature! We’ve been following the progress of a gaggle of goslings – currently a few days old, yellow, fluffy and endearing – and we shall revisit them in a few weeks time to film their transition from heated barn and a regular supply of grower’s pellets, to an outdoor life being reared on lush Somerset pastures. Our final visit will be in winter, when they’ll be fully-grown and ready for their Christmas table destiny.

One of the best aspects of belonging to a Breed Society, in our case the Hampshire Down Sheep Breeders Association (HDSBA), is the social side, including flock visits organised by the Society. We travelled on from our filming in Somerset to a grassland farm in Devon. Set in the most glorious rolling countryside the farm was the birthplace of our current stock ram, Yarcombe Maximus! Our hosts, the Derryman family, are one of the top Hampshire Down breeders, and they also milk a herd of traditional Friesian cows – a lovely sight to see! A trailer ride around the farm had been arranged, so that we could see each of the breeding groups of sheep. The Yarcombe flock was established in 1970, and years of careful breeding have produced an outstanding ‘type’ of sheep that will reliably express itself in the next generation, meaning that a prospective purchaser of breeding stock can be confident of bringing the desired traits into his flock. Our Yarcombe ram has certainly brought some excellent genetics into our flock, as did the Owslebury ram before him, and the Westland ram before him!



At this time of year, with weaning imminent (weather permitting), my thoughts turn to planning the next year’s breeding cycle! Already, most of the pedigree sheep breeders are well into tupping (mating), aiming for a December or early January lambing, but I still prefer spring lambing so our ram won’t join the ewes until 1^st November for an April lambing. Nevertheless, there are many treatments that need to be scheduled, especially in view of the need to vaccinate against the Schmallenberg virus for the first time this year, as well as the Toxoplasmosis vaccine following our lambing losses this year – so I’ve been updating my Flock Health Plan for 2013-14. It still needs a bit of refinement, but I’m happy to share this as an example of the broad range of treatments and management actions the shepherd needs to consider each year! Click HERE to view my ‘work in progress’ – comments and questions welcome!

And finally, Carole Youngs of The Smallholder Series has written a comprehensive guide to ram selection and management for the autumn edition of Practical Sheep, Goats & Alpacas magazine, which will be on sale in all good newsagents later this month, so make sure you order your copy!

www.smallholderseries.co.uk

June 2013

The rather chilly weather during most of May took a sudden U-turn and the month ended with some scorching hot days, which had me in a flap about getting the sheep shorn. Our regular shearer has taken on more of the management of his family farm, so instead of getting the preferential treatment we’d been used to, it was a matter of lots of phoning and gentle nudges to get a new shearer in – and, of course, you don’t get to choose the date. So, shearing day saw just me getting 4 separate batches of sheep in, separating the ewes from the lambs, rolling fleeces, stuffing the woolsacks, checking tags and re-numbering the ewes. It was terribly well organised – NOT! But we all survived and the ewes eventually ended up back in the field with the right lambs.

Last month I wrote about the sad losses we experienced at lambing this year. They were typical of a particular type of disease, caused by an organism similar to that which causes coccidiosis in lambs, and that is spread in the environment by cats and rodents. A few sightings of an unfamiliar young black cat around the lambing field spurred my suspicion that our losses were probably due to Toxoplasmosis (commonly known as ‘Toxo’).

Our flock MV-testing was due in May, which involves taking blood samples from every single ovine on the premises (quite a logistical challenge!). I arranged for the vet to take some additional samples from the ewes that had lost their lambs at the same time. I was not surprised to find these returned positive for Toxo (and very pleased that all our sheep tested negative for Maedi Visna, confirming our MV Accredited status for a further 3 years). It is quite likely that the other breeding ewes were also exposed to Toxo at some point during their pregnancy, and would therefore have acquired some immunity to the disease. However, if we bring any of our homebred shearlings into the breeding flock next year, they will be naïve to the disease. Our only safe option for lambing next year appears to be vaccination for all the ewes, but firstly I will discuss all the options with our vet.

By the first week of June, several lambs were scouring: a greyish watery scour typical of coccidiosis. Samples were quickly scooped up and I delivered them to the vet. By late afternoon of the same day we had the results, the lab had found a massive count of cocci oocysts meaning the lambs required fast treatment if their gut lining wasn’t to be permanently damaged. The worm egg count was quite low, so I knew exactly what I needed to treat, and which drench to use. This ‘knowledge-based’ approach not only tells me exactly what I need to do, but it gives me the
reassurance that I’m doing the best for my lambs.

June was a very busy month in the production of our new DVD “Showing Sheep”. We’d arranged to follow 6 different pedigree sheep breeders through the process of preparing for and showing their sheep over the 3 days of the Royal Three Counties Show in Malvern, and this meant that pretty well every day was spent making arrangements and travelling to film the carding, trimming and general ‘tarting up’ that a show animal requires to stand any chance of winning a coveted rosette!



All our sheep-stars and their handlers looked tremendous at the show, and we filmed each one going through its paces in the show-ring. I think we were as proud as their owners were when the rosettes were handed out.

In addition to the glitz and glamour of the major ‘county’ shows, there are local shows and Breed Society events taking place throughout the summer months. The finished programme will show this aspect too, where everyone is encouraged to ‘have a go’ without the pressure of an audience of hundreds!



I don’t know whether it’s an age thing, but I’m certainly noticing things in the natural world more acutely these days! Perhaps it’s due to a combination of living in a very beautiful and quiet area, and working from home (meaning I rarely get to leave the farm!). I’ve become quite captivated with the doings of the local bird life, and though I’m no ‘twitcher’, I can be happily distracted from my computer to while away a bit of time watching, listening, and noting anything out of the ordinary. For example, the call of the Cuckoo on the last day in June – does this mean a second brood, or that the first brood failed? I’ve certainly never heard ‘cuckoo’ this late in the summer, but as they were so late in arriving here due to the cold spring, either scenario may be the case.

I’ve also enjoyed watching the progress of a couple of Collared Doves making their nest in the lambing shed (where they obviously found a good supply of feed) and rearing their pair of chicks. Today, they took flight and left their nest. One of the success stories of the bird world, these birds have spread across all of Europe from their original range in the Balkans in less than 40 years. I put it down to the utter devotion of the species, who I believe mate for life.

The Magpie on the other hand, despite its striking beauty, is a brute – I’ve watched them through the spring and summer hopping along the hedgerows plucking eggs and hatchlings from the nests of smaller birds.

So now, already into July and I’m fretting about getting the hay made! The early spring was so cold that even by early May our 7- acre hayfield looked more like it would in March, and by the middle of May I’d noticed the grass, barely 150mm tall, had started to ‘head’, meaning it had given up the idea of growing and decided that reproduction (flowering) was its best bet. Our only option was to ‘top’ the field, and by foiling its attempts to go to seed, persuade the grass to have another go at growing. A risky strategy, but one that, thankfully has paid off and the grass has grown back thick and tall – but, now I’m anxious to get it cut, baled and safely in the barn!

May 2013

For the first time ever, I felt a little depressed by the end of lambing this year. Don’t get me wrong, we have some beautiful, strong and healthy lambs, but we also have a few that were born with lower than expected birth rates, needed help at lambing, and are still well behind where they ought to be by now

Our final ewe lambed on the 11^th of May, a full month after the first (meaning she had failed to conceive on the first service). This is a far from ideal situation as it means either the older lambs receive essential treatments later than the ideal time, or the younger ones are treated earlier than is recommended. In addition to being late, both her lambs decided to enter the world headfirst – not the easiest exit, especially as the ewe was a maiden (her first lambing). So, my heart sank rather when I first spotted the first lamb’s head grinning at me from her back end, it’s tongue lolling out, but thankfully not too swollen. Sometimes it’s possible to slide a hand in alongside the head and ease a leg forward, in this case the ewe’s pelvis was just too narrow, so the next option was to push the lamb back inside where there’s a bit more room to work in! Eventually, he and his brother, who was equally badly presented, were born, but the first lamb had a ‘wonky’ foreleg: there were no fractures and it didn’t seem to cause any pain, but it stuck out to the side and he wasn’t putting weight on it. The following day, a trip to the vet with the lamb in a Walkers Crisps cardboard box confirmed that he had uneven growth plates in his leg: it may resolve itself, or it may not. Well, three weeks on and he’s leaping about with the rest of them – a happy ending.

All in all, not our best year, but now we have to concentrate on maximising their potential and rearing healthy lambs! Thankfully, the grass was just beginning to put on a bit of growth – at least they’d have a bit of spring grass to give them a boost!



After the long hard winter and cold spring, all our grazing was quite poor, and both our horses had lost a bit of condition. At their age (they’re both in their late teens, but lively and in generally robust health) there’s always the possibility that their natural immunity to all sorts of things can start to drop off. We’ve kept them both on a ‘clean grazing – 4 x per year testing – no worming’ regime for nearly 8 years now [see 'Management of Gut Worms in Horses' article] and they’d missed this year’s annual blood-testing for tapeworm (as the presence of tapeworm is not shown in a FEC), so we decided to worm both horses with Praziquantel a narrow-spectrum product that specifically targets tapeworm and, as horses and sheep share pastures, this drug won’t contribute to wormer resistance in our sheep.
Once the last lamb is born and before we turn them out onto the pasture, all but one (generally the fattest one!) of the ewes are given a drench of Cydectin (a group 3 wormer that has a persistent effect) so they don’t immediately contaminate the ground for the lambs. For some years now we have been using worm resistance/ resilience (ie. retaining those that have consistently low egg counts, and those that maintain good condition and have consistently clean backsides!) as one of the factors for selecting replacement breeding ewes, so this one anthelmintic treatment is generally their one and only for the entire year. Turnout is also a good time to check and treat all the ewes’ feet, as we tend to try to avoid tipping heavily pregnant ewes so there are always one or two whose need a bit of attention. The next few weeks seems to me that we are doing one treatment after another for the lambs – it’s always a busy time:

• The rams (our stock ram + two companions), having been mostly ignored while the ewes hogged all the attention during lambing, now get a gentle pedicure and a fresh paddock;
• The lambs get their first Heptavac-P vaccination at around 6 weeks (another reason I dislike a strung-out lambing period, as some get this earlier than the ideal age;
• The lambs also have their first yummy drench to protect them from Nematodirus, which is rife this year. The required drench in this case is a white, Group 1 drench – ideally, this would be one containing Albendazole, but since we had a huge bottle of Panacur (containing Fenbendazole) on the shelf, we used this; it’s the same drench group but a different chemical composition and on many farms even Nematodirus, which is still susceptible to Group 1 drenches, has developed resistance to this specific chemical. Note to self: carry out a worm egg reduction test for this compound! 

Well, that was May – chilly and hard work … and June doesn’t get much better as you’ll soon see since this particular diary is late being posted, and will quickly be followed by the June entry!

 

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April 2013

As I write, all our ewes have lambed apart from one ‘maiden’ ewe (her first lambing) who apparently has decided that being in a nice clean dry shed getting two decent meals a day is a bit of a doddle, and the longer she can delay lambing puts off the day she will have to return to the field and start earning her keep!
Lambing has been a bit of a mixed bag this year, with some unexplained losses that we will need to investigate.

All started well early in the morning on 12 April, just 2 days after we brought the ewes in, with a lovely fit pair of lambs – both females, one weighing 4.2kgs, the other 4.6kgs – good weights for our Hampshire Downs and born without any assistance. The same evening, a single ram lamb – at 5.9kgs requiring a little help to hit the straw! Two days later, a nice ewe lamb at 5.7kgs to one of my favourite ewes (you’re allowed favourites in a small pedigree flock!), again with no help from me.

Another quiet two days, and then our first anomaly – a ewe scanned for triplets delivered just two lambs, but good sized at 5kgs for the ram lamb and 4.2kgs for the ewe lamb. Oh well, anyone can make a mistake, even our scanner! That same evening brought a cracking ewe lamb at 6kgs – so all in all, lambing was going pretty well – good weights and vigorous lambs. The rest of the week was quiet (ignoring the incessant ‘baas’ and answering ‘bleats’) until early morning of the 20^th, which delivered a lovely 5.4kgs ram lamb to another of our homebred maiden ewes.

Then, early on the morning of the 22^nd on my early morning rounds, I found one of our older ewes with two recently delivered, stillborn lambs – each still in the bag of amniotic fluid, indicating that they had neither struggled nor breathed. There was no sign of life. The ewe had scanned for triplets, and shortly she delivered the third, a small lamb, but just alive. I quickly cleared its airways, pumping air into its lungs. It really was a small lamb. Having got the ewe and her lamb into a pen, I took a closer look at the lamb: externally, it was perfect, but small. I put my finger in its mouth, which usually elicits a suck response, no response. I tried to stand it up, but it was like a rag-doll. I decided to tube it with its dam’s colostrum – I couldn’t bear to simply abandon it – and it perked up a bit, but was never going to be a viable lamb. It died later that night. The poor ewe was bereft.

These losses are not just ‘bad luck’, there’s always a reason. Possibly Schmallenberg? Perhaps Toxoplasmosis, which is caused by a protozoan organism similar to that which causes coccidiosis in lambs? We’ve never had ‘Toxo’ in our flock, but as it’s spread by cats that have eaten an infected rodent, it can appear in a previously uninfected flock without any warning. I thought it unlikely to be Enzootic abortion (EAE) as the signs of this are apparent in the placenta, and I always inspect the placenta of a newly lambed ewe – unless the ewe manages to eat it first; yucky but not uncommon!
The following day we had two deliveries: the first a very straightforward birth of a lovely ewe lamb who weighed in at a good strong 5.3kgs to one of our older ewes. Next, late in the evening (why are so many lambs born late at night or in the early hours of the morning – don’t they know we have ‘day jobs’ too!?) I spotted a ewe struggling to give birth. She was an experienced ewe, so I quickly scrubbed up, applied plenty of lubricant and had a quick look to see how she was doing – two front feet were just visible when she strained, but no sign of a nose (she’d scanned for a single lamb), so I thought best to leave her for 20 minutes to see if she could manage by herself. No progress. I investigated further: the head was far back and try as I might, I couldn’t position it forward of the pelvic bone. At this stage I ought to have employed the lambing ‘snare’ (or simple ropes) to secure the head … but it was late, I was tired and the ewe was getting increasingly restless. The lamb felt unusually ‘dry’, which can be a sign of a dead lamb, so I decided to follow my golden rule: if I can’t lamb a ewe within 10 minutes of trying, get expert help. The vet arrived shortly and, with ropes and a bit of a struggle, pulled a large 6.1kgs ram lamb – alive! The ewe was worn out and quite sore, so the vet gave her a painkiller and antibiotic. She needed a bit of ‘TLC’ for the next few days.

On day 10 into lambing the lark greeted the arrival of lamb number 15, a lovely healthy ewe lamb at 6.2kgs with no help from me. Then triplets the next day, to a ewe who had scanned for twins … and a stupid, spur of the moment decision from me. As the third, unexpected lamb arrived I thought of the ewe that had lost her lambs … why not foster this ‘bonus’ lamb onto her! The birth mother was so preoccupied with her first two lambs she barely noticed me slip the third away. I rubbed the sloppy, wet lamb on the adoptive ewe’s nose, and she immediately took to it – I checked her milk, and watched her loving her new lamb – success! It was only the following morning that I realised just how small this lamb was. The golden rule of fostering is to take the largest of the litter for adoption, it’s more likely to survive the stress, and the smaller lamb stands a better chance with its birth mother. I won’t go into the details of the intensive care this lamb received, but sad to say, it died quietly four days later.

Our last April lamb arrived on the 26^th, a beautiful set of triplets to a very attentive mother. At a combined weight of 11.7kgs, evenly distributed between the three, they were strong, healthy lambs.
We’re still waiting for our final ewe to deliver her twins, but, with a nice airy lambing shed, two feeds a day and ad lib hay, she seems in no hurry to take on the responsibilities of motherhood!



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March 2013

So much for the saying that March comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion – according to the Met Office, the past month saw the most ferocious March weather for over 50 years, with a chilling NE wind keeping the temperature well into low single figures throughout the month. Our thoughts have been with the farmers hardest hit – mostly in the north, Scotland, North Wales and N. Ireland, who have seen snowdrifts over 12’ deep, burying ewes and new-born lambs and preventing the farmers getting fodder to them, as well as out-wintering cattle.

This chilling photo was taken by a Fell farmer who I know on Twitter as @herdyshepherd1- throughout the worst of the weather he posted a series of images of his flock of Herdwick sheep that starkly illustrated the harsh conditions farmers and their livestock endured through the coldest March weather in over 50 years. Early reports indicate that several thousands of sheep and cattle, including youngstock, succumbed to the harsh weather, leaving farmers with the almost insurmountable problem of legal disposal of their fallen stock (though thankfully it looks as though Defra will approved some alternative plans), not to mention the emotional and financial hardship of loosing so many animals.

Another moving account of a Welsh farmer’s efforts to rescue his sheep and Welsh Ponies from the snow can be found on YouTube HERE.

The ‘take-home message must be to support British farming and BUY BRITISH!

We’ve been so much more fortunate here in the south. Although the mercury barely rose above zero and there has been no grass growth to speak of, our now heavily pregnant ewes are safe on our lowland pastures (or mud-flats!) and have been tucking into a good ration of ‘home-mix’ morning and evening, according to the number of lambs they were scanned for (we separated the single-bearing ewes from those scanned for twins and triplets). They’re all in good condition, but these last few weeks before lambing (they’re due around 11^th April) is critical for lamb growth and udder development (did you know: a growing lamb will drink 3 litres of milk a day!). As the growing lamb restricts the ewe’s rumen capacity, she needs quality feed, rather than quantity – too much concentrates and she’ll suffer from acidosis. So in addition to good quality hay (which I had analysed earlier in the year), their feed has good quality, highly digestible protein, comprising cereals, beans and sugar beet.

Despite the horrible weather, our chickens have been in a frenzy of laying – from our 9 hens we’ve been collecting an average of 35 eggs a week, so I decided to try doing some pickled eggs as a means of preserving them. We found some great recipes that take the humble pickled egg into realms beyond the pub bar snack, and are happy to share them HERE.

We also despatched and dressed a couple of cockerels for the table. These were from the Light and Speckled Sussex clutch of eggs that we hatched last autumn. For the first time, we used Semark Pliers to do the deed – I’m not really sure that they are any easier or more humane than simple neck dislocation, but it was a quick and effective job. As we currently have our “Poultry on Your Smallholding” DVD series in production, this is one of many aspects of keeping, and breeding, poultry that we’ve spent some time researching – with the aim of helping viewers decide whether they want to deal with this aspect of breeding, or not. I’ve always believed that the more knowledge you have, the better able you’ll be to make the right decision for your circumstances!

Meanwhile, our older run of chooks has been infested with horrible lice. Despite regularly picking up and checking all our birds (for weight, as well as parasites), when I discovered the lice, it was obvious that the birds had been hosts to these unwelcome guests for some time – my guess would be at least 3 weeks, based on the quantity of ‘nits’ (louse eggs) on the underside and around the vent of the birds. Since these creatures, and several other types of parasite, can be very harmful to poultry we’ve created a new guide to Poultry Ecto-Parasites, which will help you to identify exactly what is bothering your chickens, how to rid the birds of their pests, and measures you can take to protect them in future.

February 2013

It was with great trepidation that I greeted Wally, our sheep scanner in early February this year. The terrible weather over winter had not been kind to the sheep, and although they looked fine and were in pretty good condition, there had been rumours abroad of very poor scanning figures. So, imagine my surprise to learn that our small flock of 13 Hampshire Down sheep scanned at a very decent 172% and we are expecting no less than 3 sets of triplets! This is quite unusual for the breed, and, as we have only a small number of ewes, the likelihood of being able to ‘wet-foster’ one of a set of triplets onto a single-bearing ewe is unlikely, so I foresee a lot of bottle-feeding after lambing in mid-April! Having said that, in previous years we have left triplets to be raised by their dam successfully, with all 3 lambs achieving good growth rates, so we shall just have to wait and see!

Later in the month, we gave all the ewes their booster vaccination of Heptavac-P, after which we separated the multiple-bearing ewes from the singles so that we could feed each group according to their needs. The ewes expecting a single lamb are all in good shape (Hamps do tend to hold their condition, whatever the weather!), so they will only need a small amount of concentrate feed (and as our grazing has not picked up after the winter, they’ll have a good supply of hay as well), whereas the ewes with multiple lambs – especially the triplets – will need to be monitored carefully by regular condition-scoring.

We also decided to test the ewes for Liver Fluke, which has been a real problem on many farms due to the recent high rainfall. So we gathered the flock again, and the vet took a random 10 blood samples from the group to be tested for antibodies to the fluke parasite. I’m pleased to report that the result was negative.
Then February became quite busy! A neighbouring farmer had his arm broken while TB testing a bull, just as their commercial flock of North Country Mules were about to lamb – could I lend a hand? The next few days were quite an eye-opener for me, and an experience I thoroughly enjoyed. The ewes were batched into two groups each of around 600, an early lambing group followed about 3 weeks later by the next group.




On the first afternoon we vaccinated, drenched and bolused about 300 ewes. These were all on the home farm, and the portable Pratley handling system – together with Meg, a truly talented collie – made for an efficient, very streamlined operation… I felt a little envy creeping in.

The next day was a bit more demanding: another 350 ewes, but these were in two groups on outlying fields, and it was raining. On this occasion Meg and the Pratley really came into their own! Then it was back to the home farm to feed, hay, straw and water the first lambing group… and I was still enjoying myself!

Life got a bit harder in the lambing sheds over the next few days, although the ewes were a great bunch, with all but a few lambing without any help or intervention. There were quite a few triplets, and an equal number of singles, so fostering the larger of the triplet lambs onto a single-bearing ewe was a relatively easy task – though a couple of ewes did have to be yoked before they would accept the adopted lamb. I have no record of how many lambs I tailed and castrated during the next couple of days. Although it’s not a job I enjoy, this is a commercial flock with all the lambs sold on contract to a large food processor who specifies castrated rams, so on with the rubber rings. (We don’t castrate our own ram lambs, but our flock is small enough for us to manage them separately from the ewe lambs once they reach puberty).

So, here are some photos of my temporary ‘office’…





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January 2013

It’s the mud that I can’t stand. With every step it grabs your foot and clings on as you try to step forward, turning the short walk to the yard into a Himalayan trek. Worse still, occasionally it refuses to let go of the wellie-boot and you teeter forward in your socked foot desperately trying to grab hold of something to stop yourself plunging sock-first into the mud. Then there’s the dilemma: muddy-socked-squelchy foot back into the boot, or hop the rest of the way to the yard?



The poet Frederick Langbridge once wrote, “Two men look out through the same bars: one sees the mud, and one the stars.” Well, for the past six months I have been seeing the mud and I think it’s about time the rain stopped and gave us all a glimpse of the stars!

Over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that the best way of ensuring your animals stay healthy and productive, is to spend as much time as possible simply observing them. This way, you become accustomed to their ‘normal’ behaviour and will be quick to spot a subtle change from the norm: perhaps one morning the usually feisty hen is last out of the coop, or you spot another who seems intent on spending the whole day preening. Any ‘odd’ or out-of-character behaviour is worthy of note, and if the animal in question doesn’t revert to it’s ‘normal’ habits quickly, then it requires investigation. This was the case with our dear old Welsummer cock, Eric, who I spotted repeatedly ‘bowing’ to his hens; charming, I thought, how chivalrous of him. A little while later, I noticed he was still bowing, and at this point I realised it was out of character – in fact, it was distinctly peculiar. Even more uncharacteristically, he let me catch and pick him up without protest. On close inspection I realised that the poor old boy was crawling with lice, and must have been very uncomfortable. The whole flock has now been treated, and are on a 4-week treatment programme – for information on how to recognise and treat lice on chickens, see this month’s “Things to Do – Chickens”.

Meanwhile, I really can’t forget the mud. Thick and glutinous, it has made hacking my feisty mare a bit of a challenge. The ‘green lane’ that is one of our favourite routes is now ‘mud alley’ and as she hates getting her legs muddy she tries her hardest to keep to the edges, dragging me though the overhanging branches! We generally return home both covered in mud from poll to fetlock, and me with bits of branch sticking in my hat.
Similarly, the dogs (ex-racing greyhound and lurcher), despite my entreaties to ‘just do a quick turn around the block’, insist on the full, around the ploughed fields, up the hill, then down and across the stream (stream!? It’s a raging torrent!).

I’m not sure my wellies are up to this continued onslaught, or my socks for that matter, and I am now dreaming – fantasising – about placing a little sandaled foot on dry, solid ground; perhaps even having a moment of anxiety about the possibility of too little rain for the garden? Dream on ….


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December 2012

Having had a flooded cellar twice during November, by the end of December we were seriously considering the ark option for our livestock and ourselves!



Thankfully, these photos are not of our fields, which, though deeply soggy, didn’t actually flood – but of the flood plain of the River Leadon, a tributary of the Severn, that usually meanders quietly in its banks through neighbouring fields. During most of December however, it barged its way out of its banks and occupied many hundreds of acres of low-lying grassland, leaving it under a coating of red soil as it receded. This gave local livestock farmers a tremendous headache – first the urgent need to relocate stock from fields in danger of flooding, and second the difficulty of housing and feeding animals when fodder is already in short supply following last summer’s atrocious weather. The knock-on effect of a poor harvest will be keenly felt by livestock farmers during the months ahead, and I think everyone will be hoping for an early spring to stimulate grass growth and take the pressure off precious fodder-stocks.

The ‘holy grail’ for most smallholders is to be as self-sufficient in as many ways as possible, and weather-related events such as flooding bring home to us all just how reliant we really are on the infrastructure of the 21^st Century! I recall writing an earlier diary entry on this subject some time ago (October 2009), pondering the possibility of becoming at least, less reliant on the supermarket, and at best, relinquishing the checkout and ‘loyalty card’ schemes altogether! So, how have we managed? Well, we continue to collect a small quantity of ‘Nectar’ points from the mega-Sainsbury store in Gloucester (it’s convenient, parking’s free ‘n’ easy, they stock items you can’t get from the local stores, etc., etc.) – all the usual excuses for failing to learn to be more personally resourceful and socially responsible, and blindly continuing to be an obedient consumer! We do, however, in rain or shine, make our regular pilgrimage to frequent the many and varied independent shops in our local market town, Newent. It’s a lovely trip out, and as well as the luxury of being able to buy a myriad of locally-produced products, we meet friends in the high street and stand for ages, blocking the narrow pavement having a good old chin-wag!

Continuing on the theme of self-sufficiency, we’d love to be able to exist off-grid. We have solar panels on a conveniently south-facing roof, and even on an overcast day between the end of March and the beginning of October we rarely need to heat water by any other method. We would have liked to install photovoltaic panels, but a survey confirmed our suspicion that our 16^th century farmhouse roof would not support the weight! Try as I might, I cannot learn to love wind turbines, and the idea of having one constantly in my line of sight could not be borne.

So, life, as always, is a compromise between dreamy idealism, and what the individual decides he or she can or cannot do without.

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