And the grand total is...

...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.

Lambing Update

Firstly it's been lovely to have some supportive messages and sharing of experiences following the last post. Today the situation is as follows. 4 down, 2 to go. It's seemingly been the longest week of our lives. Checking on sheep every 3/4 hours can only be described as 'hardcore.' That, or stupidity. Minty is up and out in the field. Sweetpea remains small and to be honest, Minty's not a great Mum. It's a bit like having the kid to get the benefits. Sweetpea survives but Mum really doesn't want her style cramped and often she is alone while Mum is elsewhere. She'll be topped up with milk if she remains skinny.
Luckily Aunty Ollie delivered her twins to keep Sweetpea company. Unluckily for us she chose to do this in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Yay Ollie. Just what I wanted with a full days work ahead of me to be standing in a barn at 1 in the morning listening to Ollie the first timer, baa-ing at world record decibel levels. To be all scouse about it "I felt ashamed." She was sort of like something out of One Born Every Minute making the most almighty fuss and drama. The scene was set. It was a mild, clear night. The barn owl hoots and there are no cars, planes (or number 29 buses) to disturb the night. A zillion rabbits hop on by (and the odd rat) and here's Ollie baa-ing roughly every 5 seconds loud enough to wake the teenagers in nearby Uckfield. But she had a lovely boy (Orion) and girl (Celeste) and they are incredibly different to any other lamb born. They are furry and soft and absolute crackers. All being well Celeste is already a keeper. Unfortunately for the lambs they have one loud mouthed Mother!
So that meant Minty could leave Sweetpea with Aunty Ollie and do her own thing. Thankfully Ols is the most amazing Mum and watching her instinct kick in on Wednesday morning and form those bonds was really magical. Again, the work of nature. Friday was a dire wet and cold sort of day so obviously lambs were going to be born. I returned home from work to find Rosemary standing as far away from the barn as you could possibly imagine with 2 soggy lambs at foot. Another girl and boy - beauties at that and after the sheer bloody minded task of getting 2 wriggly lambs and mega stressy Mum over a couple of acres, through a gate without the others following and then into the barn in the most diabolical rain for ages, so it all settled down and Bertie and Blossom stopped shivering.
Bonnie (my favourite) ewe was looking all funny and being very quiet last night so we penned her alone for the night. It's been a long and difficult week and I felt, after my heroics with Rosemary, that I'd earned a couple of glasses of Prosecco. Fatal error. I fell asleep during the final of Mastermind (rock and roll eh? But then, who on earth chooses Scottish lighthouses as a subject?) and fell into a deep slumber as the night wore on. Luckily DH did the 5am check. Unluckily the house phone ringing at that time of the morning sent me through the roof and, as I type, I haven't quite recovered from that. Bonnie was indeed in labour, but being Bonnie I felt assured she'd lamb ok and was excited to see what she produced. I did the decent wife thing and told DH to ring me when he saw a lamb and thought I'd drop back off to sleep. Needless to say I couldn't settle and DD had been woken earlier by her 'dear Daddy' switching the lights on and muttering about where to find the buggy key. So. We trudged down, in the rain, with the dogs, at a very unsociable Saturday morning time. I'm all for nature but clearly Bonnie was struggling. It became apparent that only 1 hoof and a nose was present so one leg was back. Reality kicked in with DH and I and you can stick any fluffy Springwatch "you just have to do this and it'll be alright" mentality. Mild panic set in when I realised I'd need to do something. My favourite ewe as well. Entirely green, nervous and concerned I put the marigolds on and DH disinfected them. Nope. Couldn't do anything. No frickin' idea what I was looking for or what to 'do' even though I knew I had to sort that leg out. The books don't prepare you for this. This is 'lambing live.' With Bonnie becoming tired and more distressed and time running out for the twin waiting I called our dear farmer friend from up the road and, as always, he proved to be an absolute star coming down. By the time he got here though I had got a hand in (so to speak) and Bonnie was pushing so hard that between us we created enough space to get the whole leg and head out. Still not ideal as the other leg was still back. A little worried for the lambs leg and completely shocked at a) how strong the contractions were (enough to push a human hand out) and b) how slippery it all was and subsequently how useless gloves were (but weirdly rationalising this in my head by wondering how I would retrieve my diamond rings back and if gelished nails would stand up to delivering lambs) Crispin stepped in and dragged lamb out, leg back and all. This is where experience in the real world counts in all walks of life. At this point I would have let Bonnie deliver her twin naturally. Had I done so it would have been dead. The twin was injesting some of it's delivered meconium and her own. Crispin, didn't leave it to nature and pulled it out, just saving it. So. Another girl and boy and much learned from Bonnie's experience. Alice and Alf by the way, in case you were wondering. First semi-delivered lamb by me, a good Sat morning laugh back at the farms household I'm sure! Mind you, I've provided plenty of those over the years! See the photos I've put on.

Weather: After a dismal start, its a lovely warm sunny afternoon! Come on the Double DD's!! Get lambing!