Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
The fine art of catching new lambs
IT was so cold at the start of the week I was putting little plastic biodegradable coats on the newborn lambs.
Once the heatwave arrived, of course, I had to start catching them to take them off.
Hot or cold, every night after school, my daughter Edith dons her boiler suit and joins me.
Occasionally we need to see if a lamb had a full tummy of milk as it can be difficult to tell with a big one.
Apprehending one is no easy feat. Within 24 hours of birth they are very fast on their hooves. A shepherd’s crook becomes less of a prop and more of an essential piece of kit.
A neck crook is better BY CROOK for lambs and Edith is a dab hand with one.
The oldest single lambs are nearly a month and are ready to be marked with the Ravenseat mark, a black spot on the shoulder, and eartagged with their individual numbers and pedigrees recorded.
A notch is made in the ear and differing red marks denote in which part of the moor the lamb’s mother lives.
It is now that the lamb will accompany her and go to learn its heaf, the place on the hillside where it will stay. They’re held there by instinct alone as there are no physical boundaries.
I talk about this with Edith when we’re shepherding. I tell her she too is almost heafed to Ravenseat, but the time will come when she must wander free.
She can go anywhere but Ravenseat will always be her home.