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.