Salutation Farm : Hampshire Down Sheep

Fraser

glynis — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:45:09 +0000

calf 12 hours old

: beef Shorthorn calf

We’ve decided to call our new calf Fraser.

It’s a boy

glynis — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:33:49 +0000

Bridgett's calf

Bridgett has had her calf. The bull calf was curled up in the straw when we went to check on them this morning.

He couldn’t have arrived on a colder day but both cow and calf are fine.

A busy weekend

glynis — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:39:00 +0000

We spent the weekend administering medication to the lambs and ewes.

On Saturday we used Vecoxan to prevent coccidiosis in the lambs. The youngest lamb is now 3 weeks old and because they are housed inside we treat against intestinal infection which can spread through the flock. It was a task to catch the lambs as they are extremely fit and difficult to catch.

Today we gave the lambs their 1st dose of Heptavac P. They will receive another injection in 4-6 weeks time. I think the lambs realised what was happening because they were even harder to catch today.

The Lleyn ewes who are due in March also received their Heptavac P injection to pass antibodies on to their lambs.

Pepper the lamb

glynis — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:18:09 +0000

This is the picture on the front of a thank you card made by eight year old Georgia following her visit to the farm. She named a ewe lamb “Pepper”.

Happy New Year

glynis — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:21:01 +0000

Faith nursing a lamb

We now have only 2 ewes left to lamb which means that the barn is packed with ewes and their lambs. I invited my work colleagues and their families over today to see the lambs.What a turn out we had; 14 adults and 8 children togged up in warm clothes and wellies to see the lambs. Martyn managed brilliantly answering questions from the children as well as the adults. It was lovely to share our hard work and let friends from work see for themselves the sheep that they hear me talking so much about.

Highs and Lows

glynis — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:03:16 +0000

A ewe lamb greeted me when I checked on the sheep at 6.20am. It had just been born and it’s mother was doing a grand job of licking her clean.

Martyn raised me from my sleep at 11pm to say that another ewe was about to lamb. She had a ewe lamb at 11.30pm and we knew to expect another. She was busy cleaning her first lamb and making no attempt to push so after 15mins I went in and delivered the second lamb. It was dead and our attempts to revive her failed. It seems such a shame.

Back to Work

glynis — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 21:00:33 +0000

I returned to work today. Only one lamb was born over the holiday period on Boxing Day. We took the opportunity on Boxing Day to muck out the lambing pens in the hope that we will have more lambs soon. The last group of lambs and their mothers were identified with matching marker spray dots and moved into a nursery pen. We still have 9 ewes to lamb and feel as if we have been doing this forever.

Christmas Eve

glynis — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:37:51 +0000

We have had 5 new additions since my last message.

A single ram lamb arrives at 11.30pm on 20th December. The following day at 7.30pm we had another single ram lamb.

I decided to do a supermarket shop after work on Thursday and sent a text to Martyn to say I would be home around 7pm. I didn’t see the texts or the 8 missed calls from him until I was back in the supermarket. Martyn had no option but to lamb a breach birth on his own. She weighed 6.5 kilos and it was quite a struggle to keep the lamb down on the ground and deliver the lamb at the same time. There was just time to have tea and relax when another ewe went into labour and had twin ewe lambs just after midnight.

We are now gradually moving the ewes and their lambs into a nursery pen. The ewes are quite possesive over their lambs and will push the lambs that are not their own away.

A recent check on the ewes has found them settled but only time will tell.

Happy Christmas

Why are we waiting…

glynis — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 08:00:06 +0000

This has to be the strangest lambing time we have ever had. We knew that lambing would be spread out during December and into January but it seems as if we have been waiting for some of our ewes to lamb forever. When we check on the sheep during the hours of darkness we only take a torch into the barn. We check each ewe to see if she is looking unsettled, pawing the ground or lying down to push. We listen to see if we can hear the ewes panting or straining too push. I think we almost want to see a ewe in labour as reward for leaving our bed and checking on the girls especially Martyn who does the 2.30am check. Perhaps today will see some new arrivals?

More lambs at last

glynis — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 20:44:23 +0000

We have had some new arrivals in the past 24 hours.

Sunshine lambed last night. A visit to the barn at 9.30pm saw the single ewe lamb up on her feet and quite dry indicating that she had been born some time. Martyn had checked on the sheep after Emmerdale at 7.30pm and there had been no signs of labour.

This morning saw the arrival of another single ewe lamb at 7am. The ewe and lamb were moved into a pen and once we were satisfied that the lamb had found the teat we came inside for breakfast.

The 5 turkeys we have been rearing for Christmas were despatched today. We took them across to our friends John and Liz where they were plucked by hand. The turkeys will hang for a couple of days before being dressed.