Who needs a strimmer ?

Keeping the grass and vegetation down on the bank  is tedious and time-consuming . But there is a different solution !

And as an added bonus, none of them tried to escape

Lucky Lads

So its tupping time.


And the sequence of events ( what could possibly go wrong ??):

 Get  the ewes from the field they are grazing in

  to somewhere where you  can separate off the lucky girls.

And then you need to get them penned

And as we are putting different rams to different  groups then you need to separate them and transport them to do the field where he is going  to do the business.

  
and put the group in the field

 And then you need to get  the ram.

  and then  you need to apply raddle (the oily stuff ) to their chest

 and then you introduce him to the ladies

 where he will go and find the ewes who are in season

and job  done !!

what could go wrong ?

Well. nothing actually.


 

Scanning

Are the ewes pregnant ? .Theyve all been tupped but .  We need a scanner to  confirm
So on saturday we had

1. Weather.

50mph horizontal hail. But that's just a mild spring breeze.


2. Some sheep 

3. A scanner 

Bruce arrived

4 Some helpers 

 5. Some action 

And the result is that we are expecting 7 twins and 12 singletons,  commencing at the start of May.
Unless its all a bit early, then its the end of April.

Lambing  - lots of hanging around for stuff to happen.  And then it happens and a biot more hanging around . Or action . or something

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) 

Fraser gets his chance

So the time has come ,and Fraser , the Gotland ram, has been let out of the barn and into the field  with the Gotland eyes.  He was raddled  before being let into the field.













Anyway he was clearly keen  as he spotted the ewes  higher up the field .

Sadly they didnt seem to be as keen  as he followed them round the field.   

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