Sunday 29th April - Good bye to Dan

Today we delivered Dan, our young male alpaca to his new home. He's now living on an 80 acre farm with 3 other male alpacas and 100s of White Faced Woodland sheep. He took no getting into the trailer and travelled really well. When he met his new friends, he ran straight to them to sniff and see who they all were. When we left there was no backward look to watch us go. Too many new things to do, sheep to watch, chickens to chase, new mates to play with. Considering he just left his mum that morning, he seems O.K. His mum Eloise, appears to be fine about him going, happily munching the grass with Bella and Elli.

This week we have had a couple of lambs that have been limping, when we checked them out nothing appeared to be wrong. They have more than likely got it running around with the lamb gang.

We also moved the ewes and lambs into a new paddock, only to discover that the fence between them and the paddock the the female alpacas is high enough for little lambs to crawl under to see the alpacas, but then too small for them the get back to their mums!!!! Lambs are very stupid at times. So we spent a very peaceful 1/2 hour dropping the netting so that the little horrors can't get through. Shetland lambs are great escapologists.

We found out today that one of our friends and great Shetland sheep breeders are drastically reducing their stock of sheep, due to ill health. Needless to say we have registered our interest in at least 6 of their ewes. Watch this space to see how many we finally end up with!!!!!!

Update on the barn cats from the Cats Protection league. Being feral cats they are taking some catching. So once they are caught they will let us know. Talking of cats, next door's cat decide to have her 3 kittens in the female alpaca's hay rack. Caused the alpacas complete confusion. Needless to say we very carefully took the cat and her kittens back home.

Hopefully a quiet week before the onslaught of the bank holiday weekend and the arrival of the resident vandal. Denise has been talked into showing a group of school kids how to spin and shear a sheep on Wednesday!!!!!

Denise

Denise

Lambing has finished

With lambing now over it seemed a bit strange this weekend with no ewes waiting to give birth. We decided on Saturday morning to let the final 3 mums out with their respective lambs and dismantle all but one of the lambing pens to give the ewes more space to get at the hay and feed. So life should get a little less hectic for us, though the feeding of Dougal lamb will continue for a few months yet.

On Sunday "Dave the Fencer" came to put up some new fencing in the top paddock. He cut back the hedge to the original fence line and we gained approx a metre of grazing. We will chain harrow and fertilise this paddock before putting any livestock in over the next week.

With the weather changing back to something like it should be for April, showers and cool winds. Working in the barn is much more preferable to working outside. To that end we attacked a whole load of wood that needed chopping into kindling for our 2 wood burning stoves.
Tim got the door made for the wood store and the windows finished just as the first swallows arrived, so they will have to nest in the barn as opposed to the old workshop, wood store and garage, which have all been re-roofed, where they used to nest. They have arrived a good 2 weeks earlier than last year.

Another post next Sunday, where we are set to have a hectic weekend

Denise

Friday 20th - Last lamb born

This afternoon Amy gave birth to a ewe lamb. If the weather is O.K in the morning we will let Layla, Lucy and Amy out into the field with their respective lambs. It's amazing how much the lambs grow in the sunshine.

Our finally tally of lambs is 23. 16 ewe lambs and 7 tup lambs. All in all we are very pleased with the lambs we have had this year. There are some interesting colours and pattens amongst them. It's strange to think that this weekend some of the lambs will be 3 weeks old and in about 3 weeks time all of the lambs will require their first set of injections for clostridial diseases, i.e e-coli. That will be fun!!!!!

Denise

Thursday 10th April - Lucy finally delivers

Early this morning Lucy had twin lambs, one ewe and one tup lamb. As the weather has got somewhat colder and we've had some rain. Lucy and Layla will stay in the lambing barn for a couple of more days, especially as Amy is now in to give birth, hopefully on Friday.
Once Amy has had her lambs, that means we have finished lambing for the year. I know that Winky is supposed to be due in May, but neither of us are convinced that she is going to have any lambs.

Denise

18th April - Layla has twins

Late on Wednesday night Layla gave birth to twins, a "mini me" ewe lamb and yet another black tup lamb. All are doing well.

Denise

Tuesday 17th April - 2 more lambs

When Tim went to feed Dougal his afternoon feed Lotty had just given birth to her twin daughters, seen here half asleep in the hay of their pen. They will spend tomorrow inside and depending on the weather will go out on Thursday.

To date the lamb total stands at 18, 13 ewe lambs, 5 tup lambs. We're pretty happy with what lambs we have had to date. Hopefully Lucy and Layla will have their lambs tomorrow.

Denise

Lilly's lamb

Managed to get a photo of Lilly and her little ewe lamb out in the paddock enjoying this mild weather we have been having

Denise