5 weeks ago we walked onto an old estate farm, in Lanark Scotland to experience lambing in the UK. Over our time there we learnt a lot, a lot more then we could have imagined and we left having gained some valuable knowledge about lambing sheep, farming styles and systems for this area of Europe. We drove tractors, an excavator, mostly completed 500m of fencing, had a hand in lambing 120 ewes, fed out silage, checked sheep daily, rode horses, a day trip to Glasgow, a few walks along the River Clyde and helped drain a paddock.
After initially being out of our comfort zone with the amount of hands on work required specifically with the ewes, compared to having them roam around a paddock and only intervening when really necessary, we gradually found ourselves coming around to this micro management system and really quite enjoyed it, and saw the benefits of one-on-one sheep care where we only lost maybe 10 lambs in total.
We had arrived a few days earlier then lambing was supposed to begin which allowed us to get used to the environment and our tasks - feeding rams (tups) twice a day, feeding a hand full of chickens in quantiene due to the state wide bird flu kicking around. Feeding a 32yo horse mushy food 3 times a day (she was short a few teeth), feeding a couple of pet Zwartbles, running a couple of tractor loads of silage up to some Blue Faced Lester x Texel ewes (mules) and checking a mob of hoggets (hoggs) as well. Other random tasks included keeping the horse stables full of straw and hay and feeding the cat - then lambing in-between.
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| Lambing 101 with Juan - A family friend large anaimal Vet. He came down one Sunday night with a sheep's pelvis mounted in a wooden box. For an hour we practice 'lambing' the box with two dead lambs in different positions. We learnt how to use a head snare and leg ropes which provided extremely useful in the following weeks. |
The actual lambing situation was... 150 pregnant ewes, a mix of pedigree Texels, Cheviot x Texel, a couple of old Cheviots and 4 Zwartbles. All these sheep were inside a shed, split into a large pen of singles, and another large pen of twins/triplets where feed was slightly better. To the side of the large pens there were 16 smaller pens which we would put the ewes into when actually lambing, and they'd stay with their lamb(s) for 24-48hours before being ear tagged, marked/rubber ring on their tail. From the small pen we would move them into another pen where ewes and lambs were kept for a few days, turned out each day into the field and brought in each night until everyone was fit and healthy then the ewe and lamb(s) would be turned out into the field for good.
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| Early days - lambing pens empty and plenty of twin ewes hanging around. |
Inside the shed there were 4 surveillance cameras, 2 of which you could zoom and scan. These would prove priceless when checking the lambing status from the kitchen table over coffee, or in our bed at 2am via a phone app!
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| Amy and Faye lambing one of John's zwartble sheep. Scanned with triplets, unfortunately she was hiding a cheeky 4th lamb which we found and pulled that afternoon, dead. |
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| Boof - what a sheep.! |
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Photo curtsey of Debs!
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| The adopters. Affectionally called 'the gheto' by Ludi. These were interesting, the ewes head gets jammed into this board much like a gallows, with food and water. Her lamb and another orphan lamb would be put in the pen behind her and allowed to drink. The ewe would be locked in here for a week or until she accepted the lambs. It was very successful and such a good alternate to bottle feeding lambs who's mum didn't have milk etc. |
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| Stompy's was one of the first sheep to go and unfortunately her actual lamb died at birth, so we skun it and put its coat onto a triplet Zwartbel lamb. Stompy mothered it like a legend, a provided plenty of entertainment for us over the next few weeks! The skin is a few days old here and quite on the nose! |
It was around Friday the 3rd of March and we were full swing into lambing after a bit of a lul.. We've see a couple of triples and quads give birth (I've never seen triples), a few complications and a caesarian but we've managed to get nearly every lamb born alive up and running! A few issues with Texel ewes mainly because lambs seem to be too big!
We are injecting ewes with penicillin after a complicated birth, lambs are getting a squirt of orjet and iodine on their navel straight after they've hit the ground. We are involved in getting the lambs onto the tit shortly after they are born to ensure they get a good amount of colostrum. This gave us a good understanding on the ewe's milk situation also as some ewes are getting some mastitis, or don't have any milk at all.
We had a couple of heat lamps for really cold lamb/sick lambs.
Two nights later and its full HAM 2.0. everything is full, more temporary pens made and lambing until 3am. The most significant of this day was a call to a vet after a ewe Amy was lambing showed intestines coming out with feet... after a couple of hours and a cesarean, a mutant lamb was discovered with its rear legs as front legs, intestines outside the body and a horizontal S shaped spine.
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| Almighty - a 7.2kg lamb born via cesarian because he was just too damn big! |
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| The result of almighty being too big. |
Ludi (another Workawayer from France and her dog Meg) left right in the thick of the action unfortunately, but a new workawayer from Germany arrived the same day as Ludi had left so she could carry some of the work.
For the last few days of our stay we had been searching high and low for blue 11's lamb. She's been put out to the paddock and back in the shed each night without a lamb for a couple of days. We decided that a fox had got it, or it had gotten out to the shed through a hole in the gate, and possibly fell/washed down the river during a rain event. All in all we had written it off. Toward the tail end of lambing with only 16 pregnant ewes in the shed, and after all our jobs are done we've been draining up the paddock with Brian or pottering around cleaning up. A mob of the older ewes and lambs have been pushed back into a larger grassier field next to The Clyde river and are now staying out of the shed for good. We are checking them a couple of times a day just to keep an eye on things. On an evening check Debs, Abby and Hillana came across a fresh healthy lamb trotting alongside blue 11!!! Mystery solved, the only place we hadn't checked was inside the ewe!!! She must have snuck from the expecting pen into the new born pen for some greener pastures.
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| Mysterious legs 11. |
Despite all the good things, we did experience some bad - Listeria in sheep, a ewe was ran over by the silage cart/tractor and affectionally called Squishie, she made a great recovery despite an aborted lamb. A healthy born lamb a couple of days later must have been kicked or squashed and almost seemed paralysed, with a bloody nose and swollen eye, I'd written him off. Some TLC over a week and Wonkie the lamb was back on his feet, successfully mothered onto a Texel ewe and healthy. By the time we'd left there were three caesarians - one lamb was completely deformed. One lambs stomach was torn above the navel and its intestines came out. Two attempts to sew it up was successful but it died a few days later, possibly with a twisted bowel... All in all only one ewe was lost to listeria.
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| A freshie only minutes old. |
Additional to lambing......
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| After a couple of days non-stop rain, the Clyde falls were raging! These falls were directly behind the farm. |
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| World heritage listed New Lanark (also featured on the scottish 20 pound note!). The site of old mills ran off the Clyde. A couple of mile walk from the farm. |
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| Looking over one of the old mills still working back up stream of the Clyde. |
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Ludi's 30th - enjoying the elements while checking the pregnant mules on a snowy morning!
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| Meg in action one morning when checking the Hoggets - photo courtesy of Ludi. |
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| Amy and meg - some cheeky night time cuddles. Meg loved a little cuddle! |
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| The daily silage route. |
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| Abby's pet Mr. Nibbles. |
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| Me 'n Meg! |
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| Me 'n Harvey! |
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| Amy on the post chapper - one of a few afternoons spent up the paddock fencing while lambing was quite. |
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| During a cold afternoon fencing we were graced with a small window of sunshine and a double rainbow. |
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| Draining with Faye and Brian. |
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| We were lucky enough to go on a couple of rides around the area on Faye's horses. Very well trained, followed voice commands. |
A day at a the Lanark Scottish Black Face Ewe sales: Top ewe sold for 7000pound = 11000AUD+
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| Grand champ and runner up - as judged by the short happy looking bloke in the middle. Sheep fleeces are dyed for the occasion. |
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| Bidding was relentless in the ring. 120 Ewes sold averaging between 600 and 2000 pound I reckon. |
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| What a top Scottish Black Face sheep looks like. The one on the right won the day. |
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| Most nights I'd read to Lucy if I could find the time. |
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| Stompy happy with her adopted lamb. |
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| Hanging out with Lucy and Conny (border terriers) on a sunny Scottish day, draining the swamp/paddock. |
A flat chat 5 weeks! No doubt we've forgotten to mention something about this amazing experience, but hopefully we've gotten the bulk of it. We worked bloody hard and only had a couple of days off throughout our time here. But we thourghly enjoyed every minute. Helping Faye, Debs and Brian out with what ever we could was very rewarding and we could see the difference each time we swung a hammer, mucked out a lambing pen or turned the horses out.
Scottish Words:
Burn - Stream (creek)
Brae - Hill
Stappit - Full (like full after a meal)
Tup - Ram (sheep)
Gimmer - Maiden ewe
Guddle - to fumble around in a mess
"I" - yes
"wee" - small
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