Salutation Farm : Hampshire Down Sheep

Northern Area Meeting

glynis — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 18:20:52 +0000

We had a very enjoyable time yesterday at the Hampshire Down Northern Area Meeting at Judith and Graham Galbraith’s farm near Kendal.Eighteen adults and nine young people from Scotland, Cumbria, North Yorkshire Co Durham and Lancashire gathered for a fun filled day.The day started with coffee and cake before we headed to the silage building for a stock judging competition. A delicious lunch of soup, sandwiches and more cake was followed by an interesting talk from Adam Day, managing director at Kendal Auction Mart. Adam gave sound advice regarding marketing lambs for the mart as well as informing us of the new mart being built not far from the farm just off the motorway.After lunch we had an interactive trimming demonstration of a lamb which prompted a lively discussion.The final part of the day was a walk around the field to look at the Graylen flock of Hampshire Downs before returning to the kitchen for more coffee and cake.

Hampshire Down trimming demo

stock judging at Endmoor

junior stock judging

More lambs

glynis — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 20:13:01 +0000

Another 6 lambs were born today on what has to be the warmest day so far. The first batch of lambs have been moved outside and enjoyed a run around in the sunshine.

Lambing again

glynis — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 21:12:09 +0000

We have started lambing the Lleyns and crossbreeds. The 3 sets of triplets we were expecting all arrived today along with a set of twins. It must be the warm weather. We have also had some surprise arrivals;two of last year’s lambs have also produced lambs. All are doing well and with only one single expected later in the month there is no option to foster any of the triplets.

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.