Lambs at 12 for Madam, who is teaching youngsters her tricks!
FARMING FORUM
IT HAS already been said that time seems to pass more quickly as you get older. It is now moving at warp speed and it is nearly eight months since I last brought you up to date with life here on the farm.
Madam is still with us, as contrary as ever. More of that later.
In common with virtually everyone, we had to adapt to work around the horribly wet second half of last year and beginning of this.
Our luck and our nerve held, so we had a barn full of really good quality hay, snatching the crop when we had a couple of five day spells of sunshine.
Not only does it need to be dry, smell sweet and appetising - animals also prefer quality food, just like us - but the aim is also to gather a crop of hay which is leafy and nutritious, with a high level of accessible energy and protein, rather than stalky fibrous belly fill.
In effect, leafy grass is their steak while stemy straw like grass is their high fibre diet.
We were equally fortunate with our small area of spring barley; the crop was harvested, the straw baled and carted to the barn, all in 24 hours. Then the heavens opened, again!
The continuous rain meant that we had to bring the sheep inside in late November, six weeks earlier than normal, as the fields were beginning to look like over used rugby pitches.
With a little care and protection the theory is that the fields should be green and covered in a lovely tasty crop of spring grass when the lambs begin to arrive in early March. Some chance.
Mother Nature thought otherwise. She was very kind to us last year, giving us an abundance of the green leafy stuff, but this year... think again!
The rain stopped on time, the winter was mild, but along came the cold north easterly winds with the sun.
The ground was bone dry remarkably quickly, and as I write this in early May, it is quite a challenge to find enough grass for the sheep.
Thirty of last years lambs were considered big enough to breed and are lambing now.
Two singles and two sets of twins talking of which, Madam had twins.
She looks far better than she did last year. Knowing her habit of doing what she wants when she wants, we decided to put her with the ram anyway.
Lo and behold she scanned for twins, so in deference to her advanced years, she was put on the triplet ration. She thrived on it.
Within a day of moving into group housing she, as she always does, found her favourite corner, and heaven help any sheep who tried to take her space.
She may be old, but she is the only ewe with horns – and she uses them to good effect. I hasten to say that the horns sweep backwards and the curve is presented forward.
She only needs to threaten and the opposition backs down.
To put her achievement in perspective, a sheep should in theory last for a seven-year life span of producing lambs, at the very best eight or nine.
Madam has had twins at 12! Draw your own conclusions!
As we fenced the farm boundary this morning, Madam had been under the wire, up the bank between two parallel fences then hopped over the wire into next doors winter wheat, along with her two lambs. She was fetched back, and when we returned to do the repair work, she was sitting with her two lambs on the grassy bank in the correct field, innocently chewing the cud – “who; me? Never” and all the while staring at the two ewes and three lambs to whom she had shown the escape.
The boundary is now secure... I think.
Keep smiling during lock down. Better to do it right and get it over with, then we can return to normal, whatever that may be.
Stay healthy, keep an eye out for your neighbours, and spare a thought for those who have not been so fortunate.