Isla's afternoon exercise

We have  cade (orphan) lamb.
And she is bottle-fed 5 times a day.
And on the middle feeds  she gets some exercise

Scanning 2020

its wet , horrible and muddy but needs must.  postponed from yesterday because of the storm .

So firstyl get your sheep all in a pen .

Well, except for one , who didnt want to co-operate and is its a lamb, hasnt been tupped and so doenst need scanning.

And then some suitable attired helpers.  Thanks to Karen and Laura for coming along

And then get the sheep penned, excluding the lambs

And then make a race for  leading the sheep to the scanner

And get aforesaid sheep into the race

Gaurded by Laura

 And then encourage the sheep to go into the van and be scanned

And the result

• 1 isnt pregnant 
• 11 have single lambs 
• 7 have twins  

So a busy May is coming 

At the Ness

So it was the Open Day at the Ness.

Hurdles yesterday, sheep today.

And sheep and hurdles together at the site and all setup by 930 am.

And in addition to the usual archeological activities  there were exhibits and other attractions,
including us and our -clsest-you-will-get-to-neolithic-sheep-in-2019 sheep

So some of the 800 visitors who visited the site came and looked at the sheep and heard a bit about the history of Boreray sheep

And hopefully some will want to come back and see and hear more

Rooing

Primitive sheep shed their fleece every year.  If you time it right, its possible to collect the shedding fleece and then get  it processed into a high quality yarn.

And here is some Rooing 

Harald is out

Having become increasingyl noisy and demanding whilst in the house, the Caddie lamb has been moved outside in a pen , with the  goose house having been unused by the goose  as a shelter , hes all set up
 And now is on 3 feeds a day

May the 4th be with you

As its May the 4th , its the unofficial Star Wars day. And the quote comes from Star Wars 

So out May 4th started at 10.13 am as the waters  broke

followed a couple of hours later by  a head

And then a lamb . Which the mother will lick , to dry it and stimulate it  and break the umbilicial cord

And then it tries to stand

And once its got the hang of that , tries to find the udder and feed

And once the lamb has got the hang of things, the mother will eat the placenta once its delivered

 And welcome , Han Solo !

Shapinsay and back

Its been arranged for a while that we would take a couple of sheep

To Shapinsay ,  the nearest Island and a 30 minute ferry trip



 The snow is still lying here , and the first bit of the trip, getting to the end of the drive could have been the most challenging .



But the road to the Ferry terminal ( checkin time 15 minutes before departure)  was fine

And we waited for the incoming  ferry

 And the next bit was taking the car and trailer onto the ferry.
Reversing on . Down the slipway ansd the length of ferry .
At least the only people watching were the crew,
unlike the last time I had to reverse onto a ferry 





We can see Shapinsay from the house , so we had the chance of the 'reverse' view

And 30 minutes later, Balfour village, Shapinsay came into view

 And sheep taken to join the  flock  of Borerays in Shapinsay

And coming back, you can see how the Cathedral  dominates the skyline of Kirkwall

PS Ive got a new camera - can you tell ?

RIP Boris

We have been planning which rams should be put to ewes for tupping - and Boris' was on the list to get some action with some ewes.
Until one morning, he was  found in the field, dead, lying in a littel rivulet that sprung up -weve had some rain recently

The surrounding  grass was undisturbed.

the only injury we could see was to a horn - but they are rams ,  hormones are starting to flow and there has been the usual pushing and shoving and little bit of head-butting  like here 

The Vet carried out a post-mortem -  no obvious cause of death.

But sheep sometimes do 'just die'

Primitive sheep in orkney

An article in the Online newspaper,

the Orkney News 

In the Ark

We've been in The Ark,

the magazine of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust



Autumn 2017

Page 21

The Beeb have been

The scottish version of Countryfile  is Landward . They want to do a piece on  the closure of local abbatoirs  - the only abbatoir in Orkney closed without notice in January  - and the effect this has on local producers .
So they came to Orkney  and wanted something about out Borerays.  Thye were here for about 90 minutes - which will probably tanslate into a 15-10 minute slot , if that.

So, a bit of setting up round the house. I dint know 15yr old Vauxhall Corsas that have done 72,000 miles were filmable !

And filmed leaving the house

The walking down the field

And then nochalantly leaning on the gate, chatting with Dougie Vipond 

 and finally going to feed the sheep

Watch this space for broadcast dates !