Fraser, Milton and 3 more

The time has come to go and get some more sheep from 'down South' - ie anywhere south of Wick. The ferries run at different times at the weekend , so this time it was a 9am sailing from Stromness. 9am sailing means the last check in 830 am and the Ferry terminal is about 10 minutes drive from home, so allowing some time for congestion (!) we leave home a bit after 8am . And we arrived at the Stromness terminal in daylight (still).

And the crossing was in daylight , so we went past Hoy. The hills of Hoy were in cloud








So far , so good.  Then a drive south, this time to Ardgay. It not as long and tortuous as going to Lochinver. And most of the road is dual carriageway












Having got there , Fraser is a Gotland ram , who in due course will go with our newly-acquired - and a subsequent blog post - Gotland ewes who will again in due course , produce some Gotland  lambs. Milton is a wether (castrated ram) , or wedder in Orcadian.  And there were 3 gimmer boreray ewes as wel that we were picking up.

A bit of deft reversing ,

  and there were Milton and Fraser, ready to be 'encouraged' into the trailer.
 

Fraser

Milton

All that was needed was to partition the trailer and make space for the  other Borerays and we were off .

Bede, the Boreray

Berriedale Braes remains challenging with a  loaded trailer .  So an uneventful 7pm crossing (in the dark)  and we were home.

The Borerays were put in the barn overnight and Milton and Fraser given the run of the trailer

Borerays - barn

The next morning the ram was put with the other wedders in the field and the young ewes  separated off with the other ewes . Tupping the Borerays comes a bit later

  Milton , meanwhile was eager to explore his new surroundings. 

 

 So he ws encouraged to go into the barn.  And he will be here for a  wee while whilst we sort out suitable dates for lambing the Gotlands by reference  to a lambing calendar