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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