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Portland Sheep at Beer Mill Farm Lambing 2002 Continued.... click on any picture to enlarge it |
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To go back to the start of lambing 2002 click HERE Sunday 31st March 2002 Several
false alarms but still no action today. All the stock is
responding to the Spring We had planned to keep several in case there were any shows this year as some are quite outstanding. Unfortunately it looks as if showing is off for this year and we may have to change our minds and sell them. Monday 1st April
Tuesday 2nd April At last, another lamb! After a week in which the remaining ewes seemed to have decided they were not going to do anything. Bramble Diva decided to get going in the evening. This was one of our most
spectacular lambings. Diva is a first time lamber and one
of our smaller ewes. Almost as soon as she went into
serious labour a thunderstorm of Biblical proportions
started. All around us the sky was lit up with almost
constant lightning flashes, Wednesday 3rd April Bramble Bo looking very uncomfortable at 5.00am and then got going and by 8.30am had produced a good sized ram lamb. Hilary gave a hand as one leg was back but she pretty much did it on her own. Thursday 4th April
Right: Four of the new lambs after being let out with their mothers for the day. A beautiful day, the hottest so far this year. Friday 5th April A very long day!! Up at 5.00am to check everybody but no signs. Another beautiful day so after seeing absolutely no signs of any action, we decided to take the pickup and tidy up the fencing in the rams field. getting back two hours later we found Poppy with a lovely little ewe lamb. She must have waited for us to leave and then got straight on with it. No-one else seemd very keen to produce but at the last check at 11.00pm, Bramble Bess looked as though she was about to get going. Hilary stayed up until 2.00am but although Bess was obviously doing something there was no way of telling when. She got up again at 3.00am and eventually I was summoned because there was only a very large head and one leg out. Eventually after a struggle we got out a large ram lamb at 4.00am. he was not breathing properly but after hanging him upside down with a few judicious smacks on the side, his lungs cleared. We finally turned in about 4.30am and when I checked a couple of hours later Bess and lamb were fine. Saturday 6th April
Hilary at 4.00am For some reason Hilary decided to have a slight lay-in today (actually I didn't wake her up). Sunday 7th April For the first time the
alarm went off at 3.00am, Hilary turned it off and then
fell asleep
We have great hopes for these two lads! Monday 8th Beautiful day again.
Sunny all day with a breeze. Perfect lambing weather. In
twenty Tuesday 9th No action today Wednesday 10th I got back this afternoon but nobody seemed keen to do much. At 11pm Bramble Orchid decided to stir herself into action and looked quite serious. Hilary stayed up to supervise. Orchid decided to go for an Oscar! Digging away and sort of straining till 3.30am but without actually getting anywhere. Suddenly a water bag appeared and about a minute later out popped a very nice looking ewe lamb. For those not used to lambing. Most sheep follow a set pattern. There are various signs such as the size of the udder etc in the dyas before lambing. Just just before, they look uncomfortable for a while and standing away from the others. They then tend to start digging at the ground making a shallow 'nest'. After a while,sometimes hours, they get down to serious straining after which a water bag appears and between 20 and 60 minutes later the lamb appears with it's head in the centre and the two front feet either side. Thats roughly the theory. Often the sheep have forgotten to read the workshop manual and all the timing is wrong or the lamb appears with one or two legs back, upside down or back to front or any combination of the above! If you have twins they can get tangled up and if you only have a single they can be too large and struggle to get out. It all adds to the excitement!! The timing varies from sheep to sheep and whether they have lambed before. Thursday 11th April
Sunday 14th April It is beginning to dawn on us that none of the remaining three ewes may be in lamb! Not good news. To try to ensure a tight lambing schedule, Ben (the ram) was only in with the girls for a relatively short time and it may not have been quite long enough. Not a disaster since as things are, we hardly depend on the sheep for any sort of income but annoying, as it means that all the ewes will miss a year's lambing. Two more days and all three ladies will be out of the lambing shed and all their copious supplies of food will be cut off! Tuesday 16th April 2002 Despite cries of 'keep feeding us and give as a few more days'. The three ladies are out of the shed tomorrow and into the cold hard world! So thats it for this year. A good lambing, perfect weather, not too many problems and a nice set of lambs. The experiment of using only one ram has meant the the lambs are very even in colour and style. So far they seem to be very promising, good colour and very square. Time will tell. We have already marked out some promising ones, but so often, last years 'outstanding' lamb is this years 'not bad' shearling and one you had doubts about turns out really well.
The first lambs born enjoying life after two weeks in the world Friday 19th - Sheep will always surprise you!! Hilary was
away for a couple of days and I was in charge. When doing
the morning rounds I looked across to where the shearling
ewes and those who had not lambed were grazing and Thanks for all your comments. The Summer 2002 page carries on from here |
again!
I got up at 6.00am and checked evryone. Bramble Flojo
looked very uncomfortable but not very serious. Checked
again at 7.30am and found a lamb! Went to tell Hilary and
when I got back found another one! A fine pair of twin
ram lambs. Just what we wanted. Flojo is a twin herself
and with her brother Sebco, won many classes and
championships when we took them to shows. 
