...11 lambs! All surviving. So far. Just!
Dolly decided to lamb in the field with little fuss. In fact. I'm doing her an injustice. Absolutely no fuss! Terry was up and bouncing within seconds of being born. Mum, completely laid back, still eating grass. By the time I got them into the barn Kerry was ready to be born. It was a Sunday afternoon with sensible light and so everyone was relaxed. Dolly's ewe lamb was breach. No fuss, baaing, complaining or struggling, she delivered it by herself! Such a great ewe - compare that to the antics of my first timer Ollie or Minty who only just wants to be a Mum. They really are all different.
Dors, as true to form being a 'difficult' sheep waited till we were all back at work. She's always last to lamb and I'm sure she waits to get the biggest pen and most sheep nuts. Anyway, Doris and Boris were born with no problems although both took a while to find the milk as Dors has a huge, deformed, low slung milk sac. Lambs natural instinct is to suckle high (usually sucking on wool first!) and it was hard for them to 'go low' as it were. Not only that Dors gets a touch of mastitis and is very moody until she gets rid of a bit of milk. Helped her do that, lambs were super good and thankfully it's worked out well although Dors' breeding days are over.
So. There we were. Feeling very pleased to have 11 lambs out in the field. Our friendly farmer pops over to check on them and proceeds to keep us grounded by telling us he'd spotted one of lambs suffering the deadly infection cocciodosis. As a novice, you'd absolutely never know. As sods law would have it, Celeste was the victim - my favourite and an early earmarked 'keeper.' Armed with the loan of some (mega expensive) medicine the flock were treated and to date... all is good. Other than spraying them with the treater for flystrike rather than preventer! No harm done other than a painful pinch £!
We have 3 pigs arriving next month from the wonderful Oaklands Pigs in Rotherfield (google them!) So next update will be their arrival. We've had big turnaround with the hens too. To cut a very long story short we lost 2 to ill health/egg eating over winter. Then only last week Penny, DD's favourite hen, an original and one I'd nursed from deaths door over the winter, gets taken by the fox in broad daylight. It wasn't pretty. So. We have Floss (the original and leader Light Sussex), Goldie (Goldline) Fifi (Skyline - blue eggs!), Babs (Speckledy) and Daisy (replacement for DD another Columbian Blacktail.) Amazingly all are laying already and have got themselves a pack order. I'll update the pics when I next update with pig news! Anyone looking for chickens locally should only consider Martinswood Farm in Ripe. Check out their website.
All change then. Life and death in action once again in our little smallholding venture! Plenty of practicalities to consider too like, do we front the barn to protect our straw from the elements etc? We have stock fence repairs much needed thanks to winter and deer! We've also got to get advice on some huge cracks appearing across parts of the fields and on some of our ancient oaks (some of the oldest in Sussex) that look a bit poorly. Vet needs to give us a decision on whether we need to worm the lambs or not and we've got to get a grip on the thistles that are really such a problem around here. No rest for the wicked eh?
Weather: It's been wonderful of late. Hot and sunny. Today, a misty start, cloudy, some sun circa 17 degrees. Can't complain really.
