The easy (well,easier) way to pick up sheep

Eric, Ernie and Edwin (they are a bit nervous)

1. Take trailer to Stromness ferry terminal

2 . Leave trailer at Ferry terminal, to be loaded onto the Ferry 

3. Ferry takes the trailer to Scrabster and Phil takes the sheep to Scrabster and puts them in the trailer 

4. Ferry brings trailer ( with sheep) back to Stromness

5. return and pick up trailer after its been taken off the ferry 

Job done  !!

Out with the new, in with the old.

So the new sheep have had their 48 hours of quarantine and been dosed and injected with stuff , so they can be let out . But its not that simple . One of the rams is being castrated by the vet  at 10am and so needs to be caught and brought inside.  And the new sheep are going into the field vacated by this ram ( and his mates)
So first step is catch  a ram , and a mate as they are social animals.

Then move the new sheep on to the field.

 Then move the ram into the shed

and let the new sheep explore  their new field

 PS its not actually as straightforward as that because the sheep don't want to move anywhere different to where they are .

Raddled and ready

So we have caught the lucky lad and brought him down from the field. he didn't co-operate -  he clearly didn't know what was expected of him, from the move . And liberally applied raddle to his front.

And we have also separated out the ewes and moved them to a convenient field. They were given some additional minerals ( a drench, as Orkney soil is low in Cobalt and Selenium). A FEC( faecal egg count) showed they didnt need worming.


And the next step is to put the ram in with the ewes. Ewes come to season about every 13-19 days with an average of 17. So the ram will go round sniffing the ewes to recognise when they are fertile



If the ewe isn't fertile, and therefore not interested she will walk  (run) away , so there is a bit of chasing going on initially and the ram tries his luck

And if the ewe is in season, or she isn't quick enough, the signs are there for all to see. 

Once the ewe is pregnant , she will ignore the 'approaches' of the ram.  We change the colour of the raddle in a couple of weeks . If one of them wasn't successfully impregnated first time round  and the ram had to try again , we can spot it. 

And if the ram does the business first time round and with a 147 day gestation the calculators mean we are lambing on 8th May 2016 ( with a range from 29th April to 20th May) 

sadly

we were told that one of the reasons  ( other than forgetting about it , if its the first of a multiple birth)  fro a ewe rejecting a lamb is that there is something 'not right' with it.

We brought the lamb inside , warmed it up and then attempted to bottle feed it.

but
- it was taking approx 30 mls when it should have been taking ~100ml each feed.
- there was coughing after each feed.
- it would stand stock still and look hypothermic  when it wasn't.

So in spite of our best efforts the lamb died this afternoon .

things we have learned

* we assume it wasn't feeding much when it was born. So it still looked relatively well after 36 hours of not feeding.
* perhaps it should be tube-fed instread of persevering with a bottle
* there are casualties during lambing.

Its not just us - there is a facebook page by a  farmer  in Orkney describing   their experiences  - An Orkney Lambing

Some TLC

So it was a wet and very windy night last night , the latest lambs 'first night'. Adn we were concerned about hypothermia - small lambs, a string wind and intermittent driving hail are not a welcoming combination. Some details are here of hypothermia in lambs

We didn’t measure their temperatures - memo for next time : it would be a good idea to see of the symptoms we were seeing ( 'mild hypothermia' ) were actually due to temperature of just due to general miserableness .

So we brought them inside for the night into a small pen and then added some straw bales and some hay and some food and water for the mother.

All OK the next morning , so let out into the big wide world.

Farewell, Fraser

We have only been looking after some of the sheep that we have currently.
And today is the day for some of them to go back to just outside Inverness.
So Fraser , having done the business ( we hope) is on his  way back together with some  Boreray ewes.
We separated them last night and penned them in a   hurdled-off bit of the field 

 And then Dougie and his trailer arrive to take them away .

And so they went