New Countryfile star: Girl aged 3 who does lambing all by herself!
IN her tiny overalls with her sleeves rolled up, Lilly Nicholas has impressed the nation with her lambing skills.
The three-year- old has already delivered her first lambs on her family’s farm in Monmouthshire, Wales.
She appeared on BBC1’s Countryfile over the Easter weekend after a video of her bringing a lamb into the world went viral online, attracting hundreds of thousands of views.
In the footage the excited little girl is seen kneeling on the straw and reaching inside the ewe to feel the baby’s feet. Guided by her mother, Lilly pulls out the newborn, shouting excitedly: ‘I got it.’ She then correctly guesses the sex of the lamb, yelling: ‘Yay! A girl.’ On Sunday night’s Countryfile the young farmer told presenter Adam Henson that lambing was ‘slimy and hot’. She was then shown helping to deliver another lamb.
Viewers expressed amazement at her natural affinity for farming. Jennifer Boyle wrote on Twitter: ‘This little girl on Countryfile... she’s awesome! So cute.’ Nisha Parmer said: ‘Love this little three-year-old lambing. Wow.’
David Wilkins wrote: ‘No doubt found her vocation for the rest of her life.’ And Neil Johnson joked: ‘Three-year- old delivering lambs on Countryfile, meanwhile my three- year-old accidentally knocks his lamb roast dinner off the table on to carpet.’
Lilly, her sister Catherine, ten, and parents Mark and Rachel live on a farm in Raglan which has been in the family for five generations, and keep the Lleyn breed of sheep.
Mrs Nicholas said: ‘She will have a go at anything. She’s certainly not scared. It’s got to be better than computers and TV, hasn’t it?
‘Lilly is always helping on the farm, from general checks to feeding and watering. She was born and bred on the farm so she grew up seeing and doing all of these things.
‘Since she was around two she’s been helping to clean and wash the animals and carry buckets around the farm.’
Mrs Nicholas said Lilly’s tiny hands were perhaps better for lambing, adding: ‘There is not an awful lot of room and the smaller the hand the better really.’
Lilly had watched lambs being born on the farm before but had never done it herself until last month. Her mother said: ‘She’s seen me deliver lambs before and I sometimes tell her “here’s the head” and “here’s the feet” so she knows how everything works.
‘On the day the video was filmed I had just delivered a lamb and Lilly had been watching. So when another ewe was about to give birth she rolled her sleeves up and said she’d do it. I decided to capture it on video. I never expected it to go as viral as it has. It’s just gone crazy.’
‘She will have a go
at anything’