Shepherd's Blog March

March 2010

21st March How annoying.

Last night I spent an hour updating my blog and I somehow managed to overwrite what I'd done with a blank page, before it was uploaded. New laptop still a bit of a mystery, sob sob.

So anyway, second time lucky. I have been extremely busy and yesterday I worked out I have worked 110 days in a row with only one off, which was Christmas day!

One problem with having the sheep spread all over the place is collecting the equipment back up when you need it elsewhere. I did this the other day, 2 ring feeders in the photo, 3 still to pick up.

Then of course there are the fat hoggs, they need pellets every couple of days, but they are in three locations which means most days I am hauling feed around. However I've now combined two lots and the third lot will be joining them on Wednesday, so that will make life easier.

With lambing time fast approaching, I need to sort out forage for the ewes since there is very little green stuff around yet. After a bad summer for hay last year and a very lean winter where lots of forage has been used up, I was very worried about getting hay for my ewes. Luckily I found someone willing to sell me 20 bales of high quality haylage. Even better, they delivered them on a tractor and trailer for a very good price.

Even better than that, the tractor had a loader on it so we could get them in exactly the right place with no effort. No more bale pushing for me this year anyway!

I had a bit of excitement when a lamb was born 2 weeks early. The ewes were still away from home so the next day was spent bringing them all home. Of course nothing else has lambed since, but it does take the pressure off now they are at home, and cuts about three hours of driving off my day!

Just when I thought it was safe to relax my neighbour came to tell me I'd had a break out and my sheep were in with some belonging to another neighbour. It was getting dark by this point so the photo isn't great but you can see them crowded round the red tub on the right of the photo. The red tub is a crystalyx high energy, the exact same thing they have in their own field. This one apparently tasted nicer tho! I went and got Mist and Cameron stood at the cattle grid to prevent them jumping it as its next to the gate into my house. We got them shed off with no hassle at all, I just walked quietly through the sheep and mine split off. We made our way towards the gate, passing the feed troughs. Unfortunately then my neighbour's sheep thought there might be food on the go and they started running after us! Mist worked her socks off keeping the pesky shetlands away from the mules and we made it to the gate. It was easy to get them back, and now they are in the sin bin until I do some additional fencing!!

23rd March Get me a gun!!!

Since the last update I have retrieved escaped shetlands so many times I've forgotten how often!!! After a 10 hour day I have to come home and do fencing to try and keep the little sods in.

These three, the ringleader on the right, "pancake" in the middle (yes Rena + Hazel if you are reading this "that" pancake) and a Cheviot cross on the left. The ringleader is a Foula type Shetland and a couple of years ago she disappeared for a whole year. I spotted her grazing on a hill a mile from where she had last been seen, and had a right old task to catch her, throw her over two fences and a very soggy ditch and into the back of the van! Every time I come home I nervously scan the horizon and the edges of the ploughed fields for little black beasties!

Tomorrow I am taking 10 hoggs to the abattoir and shifting some other ones to join the remainder of the fat hoggs. I should get a good draw away to the market very soon and reduce my work load - for a week or so!

26th March No there is no news yet!

No there are no Neela puppies yet, any news will be posted imediately as is usual!

27th March Fencing

Spent all day today fencing the field to keep the shetlands in. The worst bit is done and the netting (mild steel square wire stuff often refered to as rylock) is all up. We just need to join all the rolls together and finish off a few corners. Two strainers to dig in and three gates to hang... good job I've nothing better to do....! (not!)

And no, there is still no Neela news!

28th March They are here!

Neela's puppies have arrived. Slate merle bitch, blue bitch, blue dog and lilac dog.

Bitch

Dog

After a long night, I have had a very long day! First of all, we had Neela's pups, then a Cheviot x ewe had her twin lambs. She is a lovely ewe and a good mother. She lambed herself and was a delight to walk to the post lambing field. No problems with her, I hope they are all like that!

A pair of good texel x twins.

While this was all going on we finished errecting Fort Knox (ewes are inspecting works).

While we were fencing and a few mere hours after I'd fed and checked the ewes I noticed one ewe was unwell. She got up as I approached her and I knew straight away she had staggers, or hypo-calcemia, a lack of calcium. This is a fast onset and fatal result for a ewe and they will die within hours if they are not given the right treatment, which is a shot of calcium under the skin. I am sure my fencing partner (my Dad!) thought I was on the skive as I hot footed it to collect all the things I needed. Calcium solution for injection, needle, syringe, marker spray and some twin lamb drench for good measure. Of course I had everything I needed but not organised in one place yet so I grabbed everything as fast as I could.

You can see from this why it is called staggers.

This is another symptom, she has the slightest discharge from her nose, this would get worse until she died and it would be thick white foam. She was also bloated, which is another symptom.

The good news is she made a complete recovery with in 30 mins of the treatment. I did catch it very early on, so hopefully she will be fine and her lambs will be born normally too. I will keep a close eye on her however.

Once that was done and we were finishing the very last part of the fence, two ewes who must have been on the run for a few days appeared wanting to come back in! Of course they now could not get back in. Mist and I got one in, but the other one was much flightier and took off into my neighbour's sheep. I didn't want to disturb his sheep so I left her for a while and sure enough she came back of her own accord to see her friend.I had to break the fence down in the corner and we had her right in the mouth of the hole, and at the last second she ducked out and took off again! Up the side of the new fence and smashed her way through an old fence.

At this point we gave up and went in for tea! Black ewe was left in the field and I was fairly sure she would get out again and join her friend but I thought it might be easier to get them both together. After tea I went back out and sure enough they were back out trying to get into my field. I took a gate down to block the earlier escape route and sent Mist for them. In the end I caught them and stuffed them through the fence one at a time, then fastened it up tight! Hopefully that is the end of the shenanigans!! My ewe who had staggers has recovered and looks much better.

29th March It never rains....but it snows!!!!

I didn't believe we'd get snow but at 8pm we had a light dusting. The wind chill was probably the worst but as my new lambs had full bellies I decided they would be ok. At 10pm we've got about an inch, and I am seriously regretting not bringing them in. Hope they are ok.

This was at 8pm, it's a lot worse now.

30th March It really snows!

We've got about an inch of snow, which is being driven by gale force winds and severe weather warnings. After spending all night worrying about the lambs I was out at first light to find my worry hadn't been in vain. One lamb was fine, but the other twin has hypothermia.

As soon as I saw him I knew he was hypothermic. He was lying down with his legs sticking out the back slightly. I felt inside his mouth and sure enough it was cold. He also was hungry.

On the left is his healthy brother. You can see his belly is full and rounded and his hind legs are hanging relaxed. (I am holding them by the front legs). In contrast the sick lamb on the right has an empty saggy looking belly and his legs are held up like he is in pain. Perhaps interesting to note that the healthy lamb has a slightly rougher coat than the sick one, which is perhaps the reason he hasn't coped as well.

I brought the ewe into the shed and brought both lambs into the house to warm them up. The healthy one doesn;'t need to be in, but I don't want the ewe to reject the ill one because it smells different when I take it back. I dried them off and tube fed the sick one some milk I had milked out of the ewe before I came in. It's important to feed before warming otherwise the shock of warming up uses all the remaining energy and they die.

I've got the lamb in a box next to the radiator with a bubble wrap blanket and a vetbed top to keep the heat in. Hopefully he will make a full recovery and be back with Mum in a few hours.

31st March And they're off!!!

Yesterday's lamb has made a full recovery and is back with his mum. They are still in the shed due to the horrendous weather.

The ewes are due to start lambing tomorrow however a few have been born today.

Pure Shetland ewe lamb.

And modeling what every March born lamb needs, a Lamb Mac. Never used these before but the weather is such it makes sense to give them a whirl!! Twins are coming into the shed, singles are staying outside with a Mac on.

I spent all afternoon clearing out the shed to make space for the maternity ward. No sooner was it done, than I looked round and saw a ewe lambing. She had had one lamb and was seconds away from the next one. Mist and I went down to check them out and brought them into the shed.

Minutes old.

Need to build a few more pens tomorrow then! Ordinarily these sheep would be outside, it's just a precaution because of the weather.

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