Cheviot superstar in the making?

As part of the plan to keep lambing to a short period having put the tups in on the 31st October with the majority of the action happening on the 1st and 2nd of November, this weekend was the opportunity to take at least some of the tups out.

For the Jacobs our main tup 'Tom' had completed his task with his 7; 1 of the 2 of his offspring, Sarah's favourite had also covered his 4 (our old favourites) leaving only the 4 that had lossed or retained sponges.  each of the other 2 tups then, each had 2 ewes left.  Sunday evening (7/11/10) sees them with only 1 left each.  The white allsorts still have their 2 texels in with them but I am pleased to say that our on loan pedigree cheviot tup who succesfully completed his tasks very early on in the week was brought in to the race and loaded without incident.  I feel priveliged to have been able to use a tup from such a prolific and regarded flock, but with Tina's tups selling for over £1000 a time, it is with some relief that we send him back in one piece.  Hopefully all 6 ewes have taken!!

Red is the colour,

If you sponge your ewes then lambing can condensed into a short period of time.

That  is how the explanation goes.  Well there is nothing quite as descriptive as the sight of raddle marks on the backside of the ewes.  As of this tuesday evening all 6 Cheviots are now marked.  Of the 21 jacobs, 17 are marked.  of the 4 left; 2 had lost their sponges so expected in the next 2 weeks, 1 we think had a partially retained sponge.  the remaining ewe will hopefully be tupped overnight tonight.

I took the ewe that we thought might have retained some of the sponge (very tight when withdrawing and at the time was reasonably convinced that not all came out)  to the vet.  The vet did her best to find anything but it was all a bit tight in there so nothing definative.  It may be that there is none in there but if there is we will just have to wait until the hormones wear off.  So chances are she won't get in lamb this year which is a shame.  Still the important thing is that she will probably not have any ill affects.

stats suggest 85% take in the first cycle.  As this year we are planning a very short lambing it is likely that we will have to wait until January when the ewes are scanned to get the news.

Ewes beautified; Tups painted, in and at work

Knackered, Knackered, Knackered, and that is just me.  I sit here in the warmth of the house, aching and not willing to risk sitting still for too long in case my body locks up I look back on a very successful and rewarding day.

It started with the unexpected joy of actually getting the extra hour in bed floowing the clocks reverting to GMT.  So up at 0700 and out with the sheep at 0745.  The ewes had been in a small paddock at the croft since having there sponges removed so it was simply a matter of trimming their feet and then sorting into the various groups for tupping.  I had a pedigree cheviot tup arriving on loan around ~1000 and had to be at my neighbour's at 1400 to borrow a couple of his texels to cover my motley crew of Mules and crosses various.  Other than that  I had to bring in my own Jacob Tups give them an MOT and then introduce all to each other.

Foot trimming went well with a break in between to split out the six cheviot gimmer ewes to join the impressive shearling cheviot tup that arrived at 0900.

Next job, move the 21 white non-pedigree ewes into a large field at the bottom of the drive ready for my neighbour's texels later in the day.  This went fairly well; with the family roped in to assist.  Sarah was at the bottom of the gate to direct the ewes in to the correct field at the end of their journey, and my 4 year old son in charge of moving all of the ewes down the drive while I lay prostrate on all three of the escaped jacob ewes that had momentarily defeated my system of gates and paddocks; i.e I hadn't secured it properly.  Still, all three put back and we jumped on the quad bike and drove the ewes down the drive and into the correct field.

For the Jacob ewes; although I wasn't completely sure exactly which tups would be covering which of the jacobs I knew that the first thing was to put our two-shear tup that was out of our original Dunmoor tup 'Jack' with our own seven gimmers that are out of our second tup, out of the Cavers flock, 'Tom'.  So, ewes moved into their specific field for the next few weeks, with the help of the rest of the family I decided to put our three new purchases with one of our shearlings out of 'Tom' and with the other shearling, four of our older and slightly thinner ewes which we would put down at the house where we could provide extra feed and keep an eye on them.  Tom would have the other seven in the strip field.  So the ewes split; I walked up the tups from the strip field and trimmed their feet and librally covered them in red raddle mark to help us keep count in the coming days. 

Moving the tups around with the trailer, the quad bike proved invaluable; excellent birthday present!

With all of the jacobs arranged I popped up to get the texels which with the help of a very well organised system of gates around the farm and of course a well trained sheep dog, the two texels were soon in the trailer and  transferred the two miles to meets the 'girls'.

Of course it is never completely without incident so last job, round up the tup lambs that had escaped and were helping themselves to the lush grass of the croft back garden and put them well out of the was where they can't cause mayhem.

Sponging should mean a fair bit of action in the next few days but we will see.  No action around the house yet but I have definately seen the cheviot tup covering three of the six and our two-shear riding across the field on the back of one of our homebred ewes. 

Carders are here

Just recieved a set of curved wool carders via Woolbothy.  Fleece is back in front of the fire.  Just need Louise or Caroline to give me a carding tutorial.  I hear from her podcast: caithnesscraftcollective that she has mastered the art of the carders and that our previous 'teach yourself carding eveinng' was a little off of the mark.  Could be dying wool at the weekend.  Well, next week anyway!! 

First Wash

A good day's weather and once through the list of jobs provided I made a first attempt to wash a shetland fleece from last year.  With a willing 4 year old helper, in two seperate batches we used an old black bin under the outdoor tap.  Rinsing through three times and picking out the larger pieces of detritus I added some washing up liquid from the kitchen and washed through.  With the trampoline not yet away for winter the fleece was laid out to dry.  That would have been the end of the story for today but it was suggested that I bring the drained fleece in and put it in front of the fire to dry.  I managed a flood and fire at the same time.  the fleece only 12 inches from the fire turned a little brown.  So having picked out the burnt bits and then moving the fleece to a safer place I was informed via twitter that I would not have done a good enough cleaning job so would have to wash all of the fleece again and more thoroughly.  So 'First Wash!!'  However, at least when the fleece is washed I have the red and green dye ready for making the christmas decorations

Wool - got to do something with it

I am surrounded by very talented women (and one man at a push I suppose) that regularly gather under the guise of Vimto club engaging in various craft activities.  To be honest I find myself adding to the list of things to do; do crafty things various with the fleeces from all of the sheep.  So although long term I want to be a proficient spinner etc and am lucky to know a few able spinners, I have set myself the more immediate target of washing, dying and felting one of the shetland fleeces to make christmas decorations to sell at an upcoming craft fayre.  I have identified the fleece and am convinced that I am ready to wash it.  I am just holding onto the excuse that it is still too cold and wintery to be out hands in cold water washing fleece let alone drying it. 

So, I know the date is sometime in November and although some of the Vimto crowd are starting to produce their contributions (amongst scarf knitting!) noone looks too paniced so I must still have time.  Watch this space for photos. next stop spinning the jacob fleeces.. well we will see!

Back to the Blog: What is it about lambing?

It feels good to be back, must get better at this!! well lambing was ok.  The white misfits crossed with my neighbour's texels have worked quite well.  we have even managed to get some off fat rather than the usual send them all to the mart as store with no real idea of whether they should be fat or store. the jacobs haven't been great only 3 ewe lambs and a pile of tup lambs.  the most promising of which ended up with the horns growing too tight.  decided in the and to send off all of the tup lambs as store and just try to do better next year,  the plan is to run the two flocks seperately and to creep feed the jacobs this year.  of the 3 ewe lambs two are quite good and one is too small so we will register the 2 and keep them for the flock replacements next year. the third will either go for meat at some stage or to a sale next year.

so what is happening now?

as I speak the wind is signalling autumn and the temperature is saying winter.  having two near misses with the main Jacob tup first jumping with the remaining lambs and then nuzzling up to the fenceline dividing our land and our neighbour's cheviot flock, we have moved the tups across the road and behind the house; so far so good.  on Saturday we arrived back early from holiday specifically to 'sponge' the ewes.  a good time to confirm the size of the flock!!  48 to lamb including our 6 pedigree shearling North Country Hill Cheviots and ~25 Jacobs (9 shearlings).  4 jacob lambs for next year's shearlings to allow us to improve the flock.  we are using 3 or 4 jacob tups this year our main Caver's tup out of Caver's Centurion plus two of his shearlings and a two shear tup out of our previous Dunmor tup. So all calm here with the sponges due out on 30th October; tups in on 1st November and lambing commencing 27th March.  hopefully I have volunteered enough family to assist!!

will also be borrowing the neighbour's texels as well as hopefully a cheviot tup from Inkstack.  So if all goes well next posts will be euphoric updates on tupping progress altohugh I do still have to make a final decision on whether to inject with PMSG; I did last year and it ws fine but it is pretty expensive and I am lambing a little later than last year.  I will no doubt discuss with the vet.

5 days to go and some emergency treatment required

decided this evening, after work, that two of the sheep needed attention for their feet.  The first was one of the jacobs who had quite a bad infection, cleaned her out and used teramycin spray and some Pen & Strep to  help fight the infection; smelly!!  the second was one of the Mules; she has been down on her front feet for a couple of days.  This combined with a very big 'belly' means that she had started not to get up.  No obvious signs of foot rot although perhaps a little swollen in the soft tissue above the hoof and a little warm (maybe).  so again some footspray but this time 40ml of Calciject.  so now it is back to watching them on telly until they need more hay at bed time; mine not theirs!! tomorrow got to replace a light fitting so that we can see everything that is going on and also try and wrk out how to put photos on this blog!

Six days to go

My first post, over the years I have recorded thoughts and stories about farming failures and victories in diaries, workbooks and on my own website.  after taking a rest for a year, here I am again with only 6 days until lambing is due to start.
We have a 27 acre croft and keep a mix of sheep.  A small flock of four-horned pedigree Jacobs and a mix of Mules, Shetlands and crosses.  There are 34 ewes; 32 of which are due to lamb between now and April with two late comers not due until 30th May.
Our Jacobs were tupped with our own tup, Tom.  For our assorted 'white' sheep we borrowed our neighbours three texel tups.
We lamb indoors in our old stone steading. having scanned the ewes at eighty days we have seperated the sheep; one pen for singles and another for twins and triplets to allow different rates of feeding. The ewes have been indoors now for a week and have settled in nicely.  For now we are just watching and waiting.  looking like paranoid grandparents for signs of the many and varoius ailments that a pregnant sheep can succomb to.   So far so good just a few sore feet.