The Sheep year begins.
I’ve just been down to check the ‘girls’ in the barn. Most of them are the rare breeds you all love so well, sheep that were bred for their wool as well as their meat in times gone by.
All is looking quiet. Lambing fills me with excitement - welcoming new lives - until I remember how stressful it is – the four hour watch’s, the shopping list for emergencies, if we'll need the colostrum or if its dead money spent, wondering what comes next and what that challenge is.
The fluffy bundles hurtling around fields dont always come easy. Last year for example we had to perform a C section on a ewe who had keeled over in the field to save the lamb. The only thing we had being away from home was a car key to make the incision. The lamb, along with 2 other orphans lived in the utility room for 2 weeks. In lambing you do things you never expect you'd ever have to do.
Last week we lost a ewe. Her name was Lily and she was a Dartmoor Grey Face. She was one of 4 who came from the Lily Warne Wool Flock at Chudleigh. She was older, kind, calmer, the first to a bucket and the first to come in doors when given the chance. She jollied the younger ones along and she would sort any one out who didn’t do as she directed.
Last year she was the first to lamb and she made it look easy for all the younger ones who’d never lambed before.
Our rams go in early for our rare breeds. In terms of meat they need longer to naturally reach a kill weight and for wool we can shear the lambs towards the end of the Summer and the ewes twice. So a sheep is pregnant for 5 months and our boys – Rhino, Sipsmith and Brom - started their dating routines in late August. Mating takes seconds as the light starts to go from the day. Foreplay is a bite on the side and a sniff of the nether regions, then it’s all over.
Most ewes at they approach birth will bag up. Their udders get fat and soft and then hard the closer they get to lambing. Their vulva’s swell and their tummies drop so they lose the round fat look of pregnancy as the lamb engages for birth.
As the lamb comes the sheep will get up and go down, tilt her head to the sky and stretch through her neck. She’ll lick her teeth a lot and she moves away from the rest of the flock for some peace. Labour is over quite quickly when it starts – not generally longer than 4 hours unless you have a diva of a ewe.
Lily had done none of those things. Yet when we looked to see what had caused her death we found two ram lambs in the breach position both trying to get out at the same time. We think being older it had just been too much for her, too tiring and in this weather, with a full and very wet fleece to lug about, too much.
I miss her being in the barn with her friends. She was always the one to greet you with a bleat, to come for a head rub and to be beside you if you sat a while for a chat.
RIP Lily.
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