Our First lambs Have Arrived.......

The First 2 Lambs Of 2008

Yesterday was a lovely day, clear with sunny skies, and our Shepherd, Wyn, let us know that at 1pm the previous evening 2 lambs had arrived, the first of our 2008 lambs.

Spurred on by the change in weather after what seems to be days of rains, and minor floods all over our area, I took my camera and off I went to investigate.

Caergynant is the new farm we purchased nearly three years ago. This is where we do all of our early lambing. We have 200 early lambing ewes.

The ewes (mother sheep) are all indoors in a big, high ceiling shed. We usually leave the doors open as long as it isn't too blustery or snowing, because the more fresh air that moves about the better for the animals indoors. The walls of the shed are concrete bottom with slatted tops, again to ensure air circulation around the animals, as with them all being indoors virus' and bugs can soon begin to breed and infect the ewes if the air is stale.

It is lovely to walk in after lunch. the ewes have all been fed and are contentedly munching hay or silage from big round feeders which are in the middle of all the pens. At Caergynant, because we use the shed for different uses throughout the years we make the sheep pens out of huge oblong straw bales which we buy in at the end of summer, and the crafty ewes know that they can have a lovely munch on their pens if they fancy a change!

Also in the shed are 8 - 10 Welsh black bullocks about 18 months old, they were sitting in the sunshine which was streaming in through the slatted sides, and munching on hay, so all in all it was a very idyllic scene.

In the middle of the ewes is our blind ewe. A story which reminds us of the cruelty which can go on in nature. last summer Wyn was out checking the stock on the fields when he saw a ewe lying on her side not moving. he got to her and she wasn't very well, but whilst she lay poorly, crows had pecked out her one eye which was on her upturned side. Wyn tried to get her standing but she was too weak so he knew he would have to go and get the quad bike to take her back to the farm where he could nurse her back to health, he managed to get her lying in a different position, because when ewes lie on one side for a long time their bellies swell up with trapped gases and they can die from it, so this way he was relieving the pressure of the gas and enabling it to distribute normally through her body again. By the time he got back, just 10 minutes later, the crows, knowing her weakened condition, had pecked out her other eye............

Wyn nurtured her through the summer keeping her near to home and making sure she had water readily available, and we think she will be in lamb when we scan her in a few weeks time. She is very happy to sit with her friends and listen to them munching and she finds her way to water, and of course the lovely ewe cake which they are fed once a day.

In one of the back pens is a ewe who had to go to the vet on Sunday. She was trying to have her lambs and it was very obvious to our experienced Shepherd that the lamb was dead inside her. in this case we have to get the lamb out. the Shepherd was unable to pull the lamb out so we had to take her to the vet, who luckily managed to pull out the dead lamb and give her injections which would help any infection that having a dead lamb inside her would cause. She is looking very sharp and we hope she will make a full recovery.

On monday we are hosting aschool visit for the Welsh unit at Treffonen Church of wales School Llandrindod Wells, as Wyn first language is welsh we hope they will have a loveley afternoon