raindrops.....

Oh... so refreshing! It rained, indeed is still raining. We are a funny bunch, complaining it's cold, then it's hot and now it's raining....... Shep ain't complaining, it was a pleasant change to have the wet stuff come out of the sky, fortunately it was mild with it which is always a help. Working in wellies and leggins again, top coat donned - a refreshing change it has to be said! Although it would be hoped it won't be a permanent fixture.

There was a down side to appreciating the mild soggieness of the day - midges! Them little monsters which so enjoy coming out to play in mild damp weather. They detest extreme temperatures, hide away on hot, cold or windy days but a day such as today was an absolute treat for them. 'Tis funny how ones memory forgets the discomfort these miniscule airborne characters cause, until....... they appear once again. A small price to pay I'm sure for being able to enjoy a refreshing showery day!

The lamb marking season is well under way. It is almost three weeks since Shep returned from over the border and many lambs have been handled since then, hopefully another ten days ought to see the job completed on the farms Shep visits.

The lambs above have been shed off their mothers, easier to handle without ewes careering around in the pen with them, they are also less likely to get hurt as the adult sheep are more than capable of running over the top of these little chaps. The lambs will find themselves caught up and held up a height on the top rail of the sheep pens. There are a number of jobs to be done to them on this their first visit through the sheep pens.

These lambs were born from the 16th April onwards and so vary from six weeks of age and less, this is their first main health check. They will indeed be marked, with a keel mark to ascertain who it is they belong to and also what sex they are for easy reference later in their lives.

Every farm varies as to the tasks required doing to their lambs, some need to give lambs a worm drench, others don't. Then there are ticks, some need to prevent infestations of ticks on their lambs and again others don't. Some farms put a lug mark on their lambs, a notch or hole cut out of the ear by means of a set of lug marking pliers, this being a permanent reference to the ownership of those particular sheep. There are such a variety of tasks from farm to farm that it can be easy for Shep to get confused, having just got the hang of one farms preferred methods before moving onto another farm with different requirements. Doesn't take much y'know to befuddle the grey cells!

Hoggs are finding themselves run off from the main flock as well, not that they are going to be lifted up onto the top rail of the pens to have bits and pieces done to them (god forbid!). No, they are starting to think it is time to be shorn......... Blimey! we're getting to that time of the year again!

Shep's been shopping - I know, women love shopping. Shep don't love shopping - never has, but this is different. A new cable for the clipping machine, the outer cable cracked towards the end of the season last year, was wrapped with tape to see the season out but now a new inner and outer cable has been acquired. Then there was the clothes shopping......... A new state of the art pair of shearing trousers, which fit! and look so nice and clean and respectable. Last years pair are still wearable, however, a lack of concentration caused a blip with the hand eye co ordination thing and a few stabs with the handpiece at the knees sees the jeans rather raggy in places - quite serviceable at the moment but I'm sure splashing out on a new pair wont hurt. After all, it is helpful to have one pair in the wash and a clean pair to put on.

The lamb marking season saw Shep back over the border for a couple of days, catching up with them there white, wild, woolly cheviots. MY lambs were looking well, it was so good to see them again although disappointing to find some were suffering from orf (watch these postings - coming soon!), on the other hand it was a relief to find others which were lame had foot scald and were not suffering from the joint ill type infection which a few lambs had gone down with towards the end of the lambing. The lambs were really thriving and weighed heavy when lifted onto the top rail of the pens to get the bits and bobs done to them, fortunately they don't have horns so injuries to the handlers were minimal. And guess what? Shep's lamb count was up on last year - now is that exciting or not? I was forever hopeful, especially with the number of twins (and triplets) which were born but I was also well aware that the Crunchylaw sheep may well have let the side down, the only cut lambed in an enclosure were the ones which suffered the most losses amongst their lambs. Fortunately for Shep the other three cuts of sheep which lambed out on the open hill brought the odds up and although not a massive increase on last years lamb count it was an increase - what a grand way to retire from a lambing!

On that note I will leave you with a picture of one of my sets of triplets (there were only three sets). This ewe off the Auld Faulds cut nursed these lambs for five days before I had the opportunity to lift one and set it onto another ewe. All three are still running around the hill but as a pair and a single and now much bigger than in the picture.

Bright Days!

The weather picked up, sunshine became the order of the day and the shearing got into full swing.

 

On a recent gather I was surprised to see there were still some remnants of cotton grass hanging around. It seems a long time since lambing time and there was a tremendous show of cotton grass on the little bit of wet ground out on the hill which I lambed on, on returning to the North Tyne I did find the cotton grass disapointing, no where near as heavy a crop as over the border. Just last week early one morning I came across this little heap of the stuff whilst gathering, there is still some hanging on when I thought the season was over.

 

The bell heather is also flowering, it comes out earlier in the year than the heather we are accustomed too which covers our hillsides with a purple blanket in August/September time. A pleasure to see and appreciate on an early summers morning with the sun just beginning to throw it's heat at us.

The gathering was for lamb marking and drawing the hoggs off ready to be shorn. This is one of the most difficult gathers of the year as the lambs have never been disturbed in this fashion before. They are still young and this is their first experience of being gathered. A panic can set in as some of them lose their mothers (I recall when very little I lost my mother in a supermarket, I too began to panic!).

The sheep are set down from the hill and find themselves grouping up untill all the flock are held together in one big bunch, this is when the panic really begins to set in. The shepherd becomes aware of more lambs at the back of the bunch of sheep than there are ewes. These lambs may well try to break back to their hill ground, the area where they last saw their mother. They are wild, spring and bounce around and can run at one heck of a speed. The answer is to keep the pressure on them. Keep the dogs pushing the sheep on and holding them in a bunch, relax your guard and you may find many lambs broken away from the main flock, running for their lives and showing little respect for a dog. Wildlife programmes on the telly which show gazelles jumping, twisting and bounding to escape their hunters would best describe the way a lamb is capable of reacting, they can truly test the stamina and patience of the dogs.

 

The above photo shows ewes and lambs held in a bunch. These were the sheep we had been gathering. Towards the end of the gather (just as the lambs are beginning to mis mother) they had to cross a burn, in the process a number of lambs got left behind and broke away from the crowd. The best way to try and get everything reunited was to bring the sheep back to the burn and hope the lambs could be driven to them. So, the above photo is of the flock being turned back to the handful of wayward lambs on the opposite banking. It would have been ideal to have some sheep cross back over the water to help gather the lambs up, however, with two men and three dogs on the opposite bank the sheep were not going to volunteer that, the best I could do was hold them up whilst the other staff battled on with frightened lambs. Eventually all was well, lambs were reunited with the rest of the flock.

The sun was well risen, the heat was up and dogs were allowed to wallow in the burn to cool off and drink before resuming the journey towards the pens.

Shedding In

I was talking to a neighbouring farmer just the other day with regards to the lambing and shedding in. He’d actually pulled up in his Landover next to the sheep pens which are conveniently and socially positioned on the roadside and at the time I was busy going through the Crunchylaw sheep which I had just shed in.

“Aye” he said,” you always know the lambing will come to an end (if you fetch your tups off), unlike hay time which can stretch into October”

How true is that?

It must be heartbreaking to lamb where the tups were not pulled off the ewes once they had had the chance of a couple of 17 days worth of company with them, when will the lambing end?

Like shedding in, I can never follow the logic of not getting the ewes shed in.

Shedding in is basically bringing those without lambs into the pens, leaving those with lambs running on the hill or fields. A quick handling of the sheep soon enables you to ascertain which are yet to lamb and which are not going to lamb. Those which are yet to produce a lamb are then kept near at hand, in a field somewhere. Those which will not be producing a lamb get a red keel mark on the back of the head and get their backsides kicked back out to the hill.

We all look forward to getting shed in, life gets easier, there is less ground to cover to check those which are due to lamb, if you’re lucky they can be kept in a field closer to the place which makes for even more convenience.

The hill now only has to be looked twice a day, not the thrice which has been the norm throughout the heat of the lambing period, a lie in is possible as those which are lambing are easier accessed, seen and dealt with.

None of these sheep which I lamb are pregnancy scanned and so those geld/barren ewes are unknown until I get shed in and find out what exactly is going on with the flock. Even if the sheep have been scanned and the geld ones are already known it still pays to shed in and look through them, there are the ones which may have kebbed (aborted) and slipped the net, or something which somehow lost a lamb unknown to the shepherd. There reaches a time when we want to know what is left, what we are dealing with.

There is no fixed date for shedding in, often the sooner the better. The two cuts of sheep lambing on the hill over the back were shed in at about 14days, they had caused grief the day previous and I’d taken it into my head that one morning when they were sitting ‘pretty’ and being co –operative I’d nab them and run them down into the pens. The opportunity arose the following morning and the task was done.

Following those in which didn’t have a lamb at foot whilst trying to leave as many back as possible which did have lambs, I finally found myself with a mob of sheep in the field at the bottom. The hoggs (last year’s lambs) unfortunately had done what hoggs are good at, they had kicked their heels in the air and booled (charged) down the hill like children on a sugar fix, hyper they were and keeping them back was going to be too difficult, they were going to cause more bother than it was worth as they charged around in their exuberant fashion, they too found themselves in the field.

I then set about shedding out – about a score (20) ewes with lambs had found themselves into the field, alongside the hoggs and those without lambs. Easier to mother them up in the field than in the pens I quietly encouraged them to walk off the other sheep and set them back to the hill, out of harms way for now.

Breakfast was had before I returned and dropped the sheep into the pens, then the job began in earnest. A quick handle underneath tells you if there is any sign of a bag (udder) or not. Those tup geld (not conceived) have nothing but wool below you would really have to delve to find any sign of tits (teats). A quick mark of red sorts them out.

Some may have a slight show of bag at them. A lift of the tail can tell you whether their backsides are rosy or not, signs of blood or goo may still be evident on the tail if they’ve quietly slipped a lamb away sometime. Any doubt and the ewe finds herself sat on her backside. Holding your fingers together and pushing them into the sheeps belly above and to the sides of the bag will enable you to feel a lamb, often lying on the near (left) side of the belly – a hard bit can be felt, mebbes a leg, or a head but it can be felt through the skin of the belly – she’s in lamb! I’ve also learnt over recent years that if you draw the tits to try and get milk out, should the liquid come out waxy then she is in lamb, should it come out like water then she ain’t.

I was shocked when I shed in over the back. I had 26 left to lamb out there and 15 that wouldn’t be going to. Last year (a day later) I had had 10 left to lamb and only 1 geld – a huge difference!

The 26 lambed fast and within days I was down to single figures.

The crunchylaw ewes fared slightly better. 6 left to lamb and 10 geld, still 6 more geld than last year tho’.

It appears to be the norm around these parts, the geld are up on the year previous. The snow was bad at tup time, worse than we had had in the North Tyne and some are putting that down to being the problem, tups weren’t always changed at second time over, although there is no doubt that they had worked well first time around, mebbes a fresh lad would have made all the difference in catching the handful which had failed to hold to the tup first time around.

There have also been more kebs (abortions) for whatever reason, often stress related. During the duration of the night lambing when I was heading to the hill every morning to feed and check the hill ewes I clocked up 6 kebs, 2 of which I never found the mothers for, the other four I managed to get a lamb set on to.

So the sheep left to lamb over the back are now in a field, the crunchylaw which were lambed in an enclosure now find the remaining lambers in a small field with easy access. I rise an hour later than I did at the height of the lambing, the lambers are easily checked before breakfast and the hill is pushed in after breakfast and pushed out after tea, to ensure all is well with those young lambs and their mothers. Anything that is not well will not want to move, so not only are the sheep raked (moved, pushed in and out) to ensure they make the most of the grazing but it is also an easy way of telling if all is well or not.

Life is becoming more relaxed, lambs are to be marked before I depart for home and an invitation from the farmer whom stopped for a crack at the pens may yet to be fulfilled. “Call in for a cuppa before you leave” were the parting words. I can still recall the shepherd and I staggering away from the place last year after sharing typical Borders hospitality with the man......................

An update

The above photo was taken on the bank holiday Monday at the beginning of May. It was absolutely beautiful but that is about all that could be said. Hard frost which once again cleared to a dry but very cold day, those winds of a northerly aspect really weren't keen on giving up. That has got to be my main memory of this past lambing time. The cold and barren weather. I don't think I have ever been so thankful that it managed to remain dry for the majority of the time. The barren lambing season reminds me so much of 2001 lets hope the outcome for farmers will be more positive than it was that year.

All in all my lambing over in the borders of Scotland went well, sure there was the problem of dysentery but other than that all was fairly good, had it not been for that problem I would have had a very good lambing. Ewes were beginning to take hurt by the time I was leaving, they were getting what we call sucked down. As the lambs grow so do their bellies, usually by this time there is a flush of spring grass which gives the ewes a lift and also supplements the lambs diet. The flush didn't come and some ewes were showing signs of weakening.

There have been some poorer lambings which is to be expected. The atrocious weather at the end of March/beginning of April hit those who were doing early lambings hard. Hill sheep were also hit hard, just a matter of weeks before they were due to lamb it was very much the last straw after such a long hard winter.

It would seem that quite a number of sheep kebbed (aborted) at about this time. Those who battled on were weakening by the day. Ewes succumbed to drains, burns, twin lamb disease and general poverty. This is no reflection on either the farmers or the shepherds - it's nature, good ol' mother nature at her worst. There were lean ewes lambing down and walking on - a last ditch attempt at self survival, no interest in the lamb just an interest in surviving - you can't blame them.

It hasn't all been doom and gloom, there are lambs running around everywhere. Some have had very good lambings but I for one wouldn't like to foot their feed bills, others reflect on the fact that it could have been worse, wet would have seen phenomenal losses on a year such as this. All will tell you the same "the lambing gets through, unlike hay time which may never come to an end"

My twins over the back ended up on cake. For all this is a high running hill farm it is a very grassy place and would normally feed the sheep no bother, this year was different with the result the twins needed feeding. I would have let them away to the hill, however the intention was to have all the ewes and lambs through the pens and the lamb marking done, seemed daft to let all the twins away to cause bother when I then had to gather the hill and so onto cake they went. What a difference. The ewes had been getting no peace from their lambs, forever hammering away wanting more milk, the cake gave the ewes a lift, helped the milk supply and everything settled down.

There was much I could have reported on at lambing time, if only time and energy had allowed. Dongling is all well and good but very time consuming, especially as it meant driving somewhere where there was full mobile reception, more often than not my bed beckoned.

Once the height of the lambing got through I shed in. Those lambing on the hill were dropped into a field, I went through them to see what was and was not in lamb with those still expectant held in so as easier found. Herding the hill dropped to twice a day as all those due to lamb were nearer at hand. We started lamb marking with the other shepherds flock as he had lambed in fields all the time and the ground was so bear he was desperate to release them to the hill. The last week saw my ewes all gathered and their lambs marked. It's the first time since I've lambed there that everything got done before I left. I left at May Term (13th May) and there were only 9 remaining to lamb. I've often wondered since how they're getting on.......

The last few nights a great deal of socialising went on. I am so fortunate that both neighbouring farms are shepherded by people I know well and they are kind enough to offer me the occasional supper, which is much appreciated as I seemed to live on bacon butties, chocolate and salad (not the weather for salad but it is very easily made!)

I spent my last night in the cottage making a snowman. I always like to leave my mark when I leave - very sad I know! Anyhow, there had been snow showers on the last three days I was there and I thought this was a hilarious idea to make a snowman. As is oft the case there is a story..........

A neighbouring farmer had told me I must call in for a cup of tea before I left. A guy I have know since my first shepherding job and who came over the border many years ago and played his accordion at my housewarming. My last day in the Borders was spent lamb marking the Crunchylaw and Dod Law lambs, come mid afternoon the shepherd and I headed off to visit the fore mentioned farmer for the cup of tea. It was the usual Borders hospitality, which I partook of in the mid and late afternoon, the tumblers of whisky went down well...... I headed to the hill that evening barely able to mount my trusty stead. Once back to the cottage I had the brainwave of making a snowman.......

Plastic feed bags were my chosen material (well, there was nowt else) and after many laborious hours I had a snow man to be proud of. By the cold light of day the following morning I really wasn't so sure - plastic bags stitched with baler twine and stuffed with twigs......... umm........ Also the cheesey smiley face which I had drawn on with sheep keel had a rather macabre look about it. Never mind, I wasn't going to let all that hard work and effort go to waste.

I have been told by a friend that she spotted my 'snowman' that afternoon, it had a lopsided plastic bag look about it........ In my drunken stupor I do wonder if I had made a self impression!!! The shepherd I had worked for recounted our visit to see this farmer to the other shepherd on the morning I left "we came away and my lambing man was tipsy....... mind the auld herd was nae better!" It had been a good afternoon!!

So, Shep is back in Tarset. It seems like an eternity since I was away lambing and yet it is just a number of days. Life has been hectic and much has been done since my return - lamb marking and also clipping hoggs. My old boss years ago often used to say after lambing time that he felt he had a touch of louping ill (a sheep disease caused by ticks which can drop sheep off their feet) and that he felt a bottle of ewe tonic wouldn't go amiss. I must be ageing coz I feel exactly the same this year, I now know what he meant and how he must have felt. I'm putting it down to fighting with the cold for ever and a day and probably too much 'partying'. However, life is looking up as today has been hot, even though I have been bent over looking at my feet and clipping sheep I was still aware that it has been a beautiful spring day - At long last! Let's celebrate!!

Lamb Marking

The first few weeks of June is the traditional time for lamb marking.

After lambing time ewes and lambs are let away back to the hill, if they hadn't been lambed out there in the first place. They are herded twice a day, raked up and down the hill, a sharp eye on the look out for the tell tale signs of a lamb in the drain (the ewe will usually be hanging around the drain), ewes on their backs (called kessing or cast), anything trailing at the back - unwell or lame.

Eventually they are all gathered in for the lamb marking, a health check if you like. Ewes and lambs are dosed if necessary, any dirty backsides cleaned before flies get a hold and sheep end up maggoted, feet are sorted if needs be and the lambs receive their stock mark, lug mark( notch taken out of the ear, a more permanent stock mark) and any other treatments necessary.

Early mornings are usually the norm, setting off to gather at 5 - 6am is not unusual, especially if the weather is hot as sheep don't travel too well in the heat and the dogs are to be considered as well as they cover a lot of miles and find it easier in the cool of the early morning. Also it pays to pick the sheep up before they naturally begin to rake themselves in, this way hopefully they are not spread out as much and are easier to contain.

The sheep are usually run up a shedder(a race with doors off into different pens), allowing lambs to run one way, ewes another and any geld ewes or hoggs can be run another way. This saves lambs getting bashed around too much by the adult sheep and enables the shepherd to concentrate on each batch individually.

The hoggs and geld ewes are held in as they will be clipped (shorn). Hoggs are last years lambs, the replacement females for the flock. Geld ewes are the barren ones, the non profitable creatures who for what ever reason didn't have or rear a lamb this season.

Ewes and lambs are returned to their own cut (heft) on the hill after they have all been dealt with, there is generally a great deal of blaaring goes on and it is truly amazing to sit back and watch them as each ewe and lamb finds each other and trot off merrily to their own little patch on the hill.