Beginning with B

It started with the chiff chaff. It always starts with the chiff chaff. Followed by the cawing of the jackdaws carrying down the chimney and echoing through the fire place into the front room as they once again set about stuffing twigs, moss and general detritus down the chimney pot for their nest. Last week David heard the reeling song of the grasshopper warbler. A few days ago, as the sun shone strong and warm, I saw my first orange tip and red admiral butterflies. The white and buff tailed bumblebees are so abundant and busy that you have to be alert to the buzzing for fear of a head on collision. A pair of mistle thrush regularly have a noisy chest off with the magpies residing a few trees away, while another pair have set up home hidden in the tangled depths of ivy enveloping one of the ash trees in the corner of the sheep field. Their new neighbours appear to be the wheatears, but a more reliable identification with binoculars is required, instead of an "is it, isn't it" identification through two pairs of squinting, ageing eyes. I know the swallows have returned down the road at Pennant, but so far no sign of them here at Banceithin. I'm watching. I'm waiting. For swallows. For housemartins. For the cuckoo. For a lamb.

Lambing has been the usual waiting game, although this year the twin technologies of scanning and crayon have at least narrowed our watch and wait window to a workable two weeks as opposed to the long drawn out six weeks of lambings past. There is a pronounced path across the field in a diagonal line from the gate by the house to the stile in the corner. To and fro. Checking. Feeding. Watering. Last Friday, Babette did her usual trick of slipping out twins early, unseen and unaided, presenting us with two licked clean lambs at the morning feed. A ram lamb - Bobby. A ewe lamb - Betty. Babette, Bobby & Betty. A lovely family trio. 

 

The ram had clearly been having a good day because within the hour, in the time it took me to go back to the house for a quick breakfast and return to check Babette, Babs popped out a single and immediately set to work cleaning her up. Usually when the umbilical cord breaks as the lamb leaves the ewe, the "tail" left at the lamb's navel is short, about 2 inches or so, or if it's longer the ewe might nibble it shorter. Babs, however, left her new born with a two foot long, dark red, slippery monster of a "tail", as thick as a finger at the navel. Standing for the first time within minutes of birth is miracle enough, so to expect this lamb to do that with an umbilical snake tripping her up at each attempt was too much. Tap, tap, tappity tap on the internet forums ...... carefully tear it away at the correct length was the advice. Yikes! A smallholder is never too experienced to face another new experience! Pinching the cord tightly closed with one hand, David pulled away the rest of the snake. Yuk. That felt instinctively wrong. But a quick spray of iodine, back to mum, and she's up and suckling straight away. A bonnie wee ewe lamb with floppy ears. Bonnie. The miracle of life.

It's twins!

You know how it is, you think you're pregnant, you eat for two, turns out you're not, and now you're a fat ewe. No? Babs does. She knows all too well where eating for two but being one gets you. I believe the technical, and perhaps unkind, terminology is "big old unit". In truth she isn't entirely to to blame. In truth, she isn't to blame at all. We are.

We've never scanned our ewes after tupping. Who would be prepared to hike out here to scan just three or four ewes? Not cost effective for anyone. So we've always relied upon the "signs of pregnancy". This is not, however, a fail-safe form of pregnancy testing. And there is no way of getting a ewe to wee on a stick. Unless it happens to be lying underneath her at exactly the right moment. But those aren't the right sort of sticks anyway. The problem was that last year neither of us could agree if Babs was pregnant. I spent A LOT of time on hands and knees, lurking behind, below and alongside her, trying to spot sticky outey nipples under her all encompassing fleece cloud. I was sure she was pregnant. David said no. I was wrong, he was right. Don't you just hate that. She was faking it, enjoying four weeks of supplementary feeding at our expense. And thus, she became an enormous cloud with legs and a face.

This year we decided that this could not happen again. Not good for our bank balance. Not good for our ewes. Some tip tapping on the keyboard later and we found our saviour, Mr West Wales Scanning. No flock too small. No ewe too big. There's always a downside, and that came in the form of fitting us in while he's en route to bigger better and more financially lucrative flocks, meaning an early start in the dark. I am so not a morning person, but every time I drag my sorry backside out of bed as the sun rises, it's worth it ....

The fleecy ladies had a rude awakening, but Mr West Wales Scanning had an excellent bedside manner; "this will feel a bit cold" (no kidding, the outside temperature was still below zero, so goodness only knows what temperature the lubed probe was at). Who was he telling? Me? I winced in empathy. Babette was up first. Fumble. Pause. Baited breath. Announcement. Twins! Man handle the flock. Moment of disaster averted as an errant lamb gets tangled in the scanning kit. Bychan, first time mum, next. A single! Pascal makes a bid for freedom. Almost lost her in a gap in the hurdles as I was momentarily distracted by trying to get a photo for the blog, this blog. Back in control, fumble, pause.... a single! Last but not least it's Babs' turn. Her last chance saloon after coming up empty last year. She's 7 years old. Has she come the end of her productive life? I hold my breath.... a single! Hooray for Babs! So that's five potential new lives to look after. How to celebrate? Why, with hay of course! 

 

You're going to have put your hand in!

Each year we learn something about lambing and put what we learn into practice by doing something different the next year.

In the first year we learned the signs of impending birth but never saw them coming, so in the second year we watched the ewes closely through binoculars.

In the second year we learned not to intervene too early but that it's easier to intervene in a smaller area, so in the third year we fenced the ewes into a small corner of the field.

In this third year we learned that when you really, really have to intervene, a small pen would have been better than a small corner of the field.

Other facts that Margo's tricky delivery taught me are:

• A lamb can survive a surprising length of time with just its head protruding from its mother's back end, including surviving its mother sitting on her back end.
• A pregnant ewe with a lamb's head protruding from her back end can still move fairly quickly given sufficient incentive.
• It's hot, wet and slimy inside a ewe's uterus.

Yes, if putting my hand inside a ewe had been on my bucket list, I could now strike it off. Lube or no lube, slipping your whole hand in alongside a protruding head is not easy. I feared choking the poor gasping lamb. I felt Margo's pain. Gently pushing the head back in was not an option as the birth sac had burst and the lamb had taken its first (uncomfortable) breaths. The Shepherding Helpline (long suffering but very calm and very patient Simon who lives up the road) advised me to get my hand in, find the front legs (which should have come before the head), and ease them out one by one. Alas, I couldn't find the legs. Margo was giving birth to a legless lamb!

Frustrated by my failure, tearful for fear of losing lamb and ewe, the first emergency call was made. Simon arrived within minutes that felt like hours. After a quick examination the second emergency call was made, this time to the vet. Serious stuff. "No one can come out to you" was not the response I had hoped for. "Can you get her to us?". Really? Seriously? With both Dave and Simon being indisposed at Margo's side and inside respectively, this would require me single handedly hitching the trailer up to the truck, dis-assembling the electric fence, driving the truck and trailer to Margo whilst simultaneously preventing Myfanwy, Rhos and Lulu from crossing into the delivery corner and causing havoc. And then we would have to heave a prone, moaning Margo into the trailer, and bump her along the lanes for the 25 minute drive to the vet. The vet might as well have asked me to take Margo to the moon!

Returning to the bloody scene in the field, I shouted the bad news over the fence. "We've got a leg out", came the reply. Hallelujah! Once one leg was out, Simon could soon ease the other one out, and with one heave from Margo, out slipped the rest of the lamb. Despite the trauma, Margo immediately set to work licking her new born and, after cleaning the remaining gunk from the lamb's mouth, we all stepped back to let mother and lamb bond. A job well done. And then out slithered a much smaller gunky parcel. Lamb number two! A third set of twins for our flock!

All three of us stood back and marvelled as within 15 minutes both lambs were making their first wobbling attempts to stand and nudging around for the first suckle. What a feeble species we are to take so long to stand on our own two feet and feed ourselves.

Elated, exhausted, relieved. And that was just me, who hadn't given birth, hadn't held someone down who was giving birth, hadn't saved three lives and helped the birth happen! But there's always next year ....

Margo with three day old Simon (the head first lamb) and little sister Simone

Breeding

Animal numbers are going up and up. If I include the bees it's probably an exponential increase on a daily basis now that the sun is well and truly shining.

Rhos and Lulu, the terrible twosome who survived fly strike, are very much still with us and making their presence felt by bleating loudly and planting hooves in the small of my back to express their rage at the discontinuance of lamb finisher nuts. If I go missing, look for me in the feed bin. Rhos will be dancing a jig atop the lid. As of this month Rhos and Lulu cease to be lambs. Rhos becomes a yearling wether destined for market. Lulu becomes a yearling destined to become a breeding ewe to replace the defunct barren Myfanwy. Both have to pay their way. Unfortunately Rhos has only one means of currency. His life. Sounds harsh but I have to harden up. No sugar coating of this particular pill. Don't look into his eyes. Look away! We'd talked of keeping Rhos as a comedy ram, the joker in the flock, a court jester of the paddock, but alas our grazing is limited and with the surprise arrival of two sets of twins, our flock size needs truncating. Pascal and Cadi arrived first. Babette's first ever lambs emerged into the world two years to the day of her own birth. As her mum, Babs, and indeed all three of our ewes, had only ever had singles it never occurred to me that Babette might buck the trend and pop out a couple. As soon as I realised that Babette had four more legs than usual I realised she'd lambed overnight. I don't know what instinct prompted Dave to look in the shelter, but it's just as well he did as curled up in the corner was another lamb. Babette must have exited at the sound of breakfast too quickly for the lamb to keep up. I'd like to see you being so swift when you're less than one day old!

Cadi's sunny smile for mum Babette

It's pleasing to see Babette being an attentive mother, keeping Cadi and Pascal in the shelter when the second and third days of their lives turned out to be the wettest, most miserable of the year so far. Babette has always been a feisty madam with no fear of us or the dog, so there was no guarantee that she'd develop a softer more maternal side. I will always have a big fat soft spot for Babette, our first ever lamb born on a sunny Easter Sunday morning. I only hope that motherhood doesn't mean she'll stop rubbing noses with me.

The arrival of the second set of twins, born to Babs, was more dramatic. Again, both were born without intervention in the early hours of the morning as we slumbered unawares in our comfy bed. Bella came first. A big bouncy healthy, but strangely silent lamb. Second out was Bychan. Teeny tiny. The runt. A toy lamb. Dave found her bleating plaintively, ran to the house, roused me from my crumpled early morning duvet mound. I know the golden rule is never interfere too soon. But the bleating was too much. Bychan couldn't find mum, She walked in the wrong direction. She walked into the wall of the shelter. She stumbled on new legs. She was too small and weak to suckle. We knew Babs hadn't rejected Bychan, as sometimes happens with the second of twins, because she was responsive to Bychan's cries, But what's a mum to do? She can't tell Bychan what to do or put her on the teat herself. We were heading for four hours post-birth. Bychan had to have colostrum soon. Time for the bottle. Rush to the house, kettle on, open sachet, spill contents, try not to panic. Might as well tell a helium balloon not to rise. We coaxed her into taking a few sucks from the bottle, but she really wasn't interested. Should we let nature takes its course? Perhaps Bychan wasn't supposed to be. Half an hour break, cup of tea, contemplation and, as usual, a phone call to someone more experienced. The advice? Get her on the teat or be prepared to let her go. But it seems that Lady Luck is still looking down on us, for when we returned Bychan was quiet, she'd suckled, we saw her suckle again. Three days later and she's the cutest little scrap of a thing, taking the knocks from her bigger sibling and cousins, fighting for the teat. We take nothing for granted. There's a long road and plenty of unkind weather ahead. Life is a fragile thing but Bychan is grabbing hold of it with every one of her cloven hooves.

Bella and Bychan less than one day old 

Unlucky Ewe

Last week was not a good week. I hesitated, fingers hovering over keyboard, wondering whether this is even a bloggable subject, but this isn't a censored or fictionalised account of "Banceithin Life", it's a warts and all story, an expose of the idiot things we do. As the title says, "still learning, still making mistakes".

An unplanned loss of life on a smallholding, and especially on a small smallholding like ours, is always a tragedy. We've suffered mercifully few in our five years, just two chickens (obviously I'm not counting all the bee deaths to which I've unknowingly, clumsily contributed). Alas, we must now add an unborn lamb to the body count. Myfanwy miscarried a few days ago. I'm doubly sad as she was empty last year so this was her second chance to prove that her first born, Ceredig, was not a one off. A "proper" farmer would not have given a second thought to "having her killed then eating her" (that very advice was given to me just yesterday). There'd be no second chance. The harsh truth is that without identifying any external cause for the abortion - such as dog attack or some other fright - we have to face the fact that Myfanwy may not be a viable breeding ewe.

Much of the foetal development of a lamb occurs during the last six weeks of pregnancy, so with at least ten weeks still to go there wouldn't have been much to abort, and there was certainly little evidence besides a bloody patch of grass and a bloody sheep's arse. Veterinary advice was to "get in there" to check for "retained material", which if left inside would lead to infection pretty quickly. Never having been required to go anywhere near "there" before now, we enlisted neighbourly help to supervise our first time. However, Myfanwy had no intention of letting anyone or anything near her "there". She jumped the fence in one and left us standing open mouthed at her agility for one so bulky. In hindsight, we probably shouldn't have arrived as a team of four carrying buckets and syringes, wearing high-vis jackets, and striding purposefully towards Myfanwy's temporary prison. Never underestimate a sheep's sense of self-preservation. It is surprisingly strong for an animal with a reputation for spending its life trying to die.

That was Friday. Two further attempts the following day to pen and treat Myfanway also failed. The rest of the flock milled around, nudging me, sensing the possibility of tasty nuts or crunchy hay, but no amount of bucket rattling or hay rustling would persuade Myfanwy to come anywhere near me. She has always been the wariest of the flock, and now she was on high alert.

Sunday morning arrived and with heavy hearts we filled the buckets with hot water yet again, primed the syringes and headed out to the field. Luckily Myfanwy was showing no signs of infection and appeared as normal, if jumpy. On the plus side, this rendered an internal inspection unnecessary. The antibiotic injections, however, were still a necessary precaution, so we couldn't allow another refusal. We abandoned the pen and opted for hiding Dave in her blind spot, waiting until she was nose deep in the nuts bucket, then going in for the ambush. Third time lucky and Dave is on the ground spooning Myfanwy, one leg thrown across her woolly bulk, firm hand under her chin, whispering reassuring words into her twitchy ear. As wonderful a photo opportunity as this was, Myfanwy would not put up with this undignified embrace for long, so it was down to business - tail up, peer in, wash down, two jabs, hooves clipped, feet sprayed, back on four legs, one less ewe to lamb come spring.
Does she even know what happened?  I guess it doesn't matter whether she does or not, as long as she recovers, and besides, I think I'm sad enough for the both of us.

Keep Calm & Carry On

Have you ever wondered how a sheep spends its day? Neither had I, and neither did I ever expect to find myself spending quality time sat on a deckchair watching the back end of a sheep through binoculars. Nevertheless, that's exactly what both of us have been doing this month. Thankfully all this ovine voyeurism has come to an end, a messy stressy end.

When you have just three ewes to be tupped (i.e. getting jiggy with the ram), things like crayon raddles (the successful ram's unsubtle calling card) and pregnancy scanning are luxury items, Unfortunately these are also the items you need if you're to have any idea whatsoever when your ewes might lamb. For us the lambing period is a six week window within which the ewes may or may not pop out a lamb or two or maybe three or heaven forbid four. We can't pen them into their little field shelter for the whole time so its to and fro, to and fro, watching and waiting for the telltale signs of the onset of lambing - restlessness, pawing the ground, curling back the lip, throwing back the head. Last year I think the stork delivered our three lambs because not one of Margo, Myfanwy or Babs displayed any one of these signs at any time. One day there was no lamb, the next day there was. Thus leaving us none the wiser as to the ins, and more importantly the outs, of lambing. This year we were determined to catch them in the act. Afterall, there is never any guarantee that problem free births one year mean problem free births the next year. Hence the deckchair and binoculars.

Babs foiled us yet again. "She doesn't look like she's anywhere near lambing, how about popping out for an hour for a quick pint." One pint became one and a half pints, as it does, so an hour became an hour and a half. On our return, there he was, sticky, yellow and wobbly getting an all over wash and blow dry from mum. The Rhos Yr Hafod is where we were when he was born so Rhos is his name.

 

A week later and Rhos was still a lone lamb with no one to play with, whilst Margo, always a large lady, looked about ready to explode. You don't have to go too far for advice on all things sheep related - we tried her on raspberry leaf tea (apparently it works for pregnant sheep as it does for pregnant women, and sheep are given dill to bring on lactation, though I'm not sure if that works for women as it does for sheep); we confirmed that her "titties" were sticking out at angles (I was reliably informed, together with appropriate hand gestures, that this is a dead cert indicator of birth within days); a frisky ram would mean ewes lambing within days of each other and a lazy ram would mean up to two weeks between births (we had no way of retrospectively assessing friskiness levels of the three potential fathers). The best advice, and the only advice we failed to heed in its entirety, was "keep calm, don't panic, have a cup of tea and wait".

Wednesday's false alarm that sent us scurrying for the lambing kit bucket, flask of coffee and sandwiches, was a yawn that looked like a lip curl.

Thursday's false alarm that sent me scurrying for the lambing kit bucket while cursing Dave for being at work, was a lip curl coupled with pawing and heaving that turned out to be a yawn and getting comfy in the sun.

On Friday there wasn't even so much as a false alarm and all we saw Margo do (close up through binoculars) was graze, snooze and occasionally throw a knowing smile in our direction.

Saturday passed in much the same way as Friday. Maybe she'd reabsorbed the lamb? Maybe she was just obese? Friends come round for dinner. We start cooking. Five minutes before the lamb steaks are ready (oh the irony!) I suggest one last evening check. Off to the field I go, expecting nothing, and there she is throwing her head back and lip curling like she means business! And judging by the hideous mess hanging out of her back end (also known as the water bag), she wasn't pretending this time. 

This is where things started to go wrong.

Ten days of being the only lamb in the flock had clearly turned Rhos into a spoiled little boy, and like all spoiled little boys he's greedy, naughty and wants to be the centre of attention. Auntie Margo bringing a rival lamb into the world was clearly not part of his plan, so he intervened. As Margo alternated between lying panting and staggering around, Rhos moved in and began suckling her. This was bad news. The first milk contains the all important colostrum through which the ewe passes on immunity and nourishing goodies to kick start her new born lamb. Rhos was stealing it. It certainly made him frisky, leaping about as he followed Margo, who by now had decided Rhos was her new lamb and began cleaning him. Trying to part the pair was causing stress. Running around mid birth is probably as bad for ewe and lamb as it is distressing to watch. By now an emergency call had been made to Simon up the road, who arrived minutes later armed with a bag of powdered colostrum for the yet to be born lamb and calming words for us. The best we could do was to give up, eat our rapidly cooling dinner and let nature take its course.

An hour later we head back out. I could see Margo lying prone in the field. I can see blood. Ever the pessimist I'm convinced she's dead, but we'd arrived bang on time and the poor old girl was simply giving birth! Unfortunately Rhos was still bothering her. He wouldn't leave her alone even as the newly emerged lamb lay by her back end. Now the risk was that Rhos would interfere with the mother-lamb bonding process. Our attempt to scare Rhos off caused Margo to leap up, breaking the umbilical cord between her and her lamb. We immediately realised our mistake and backed off, but fortunately this was enough to send Rhos scurrying back to his real mother, Babs, whose disciplining of her offspring had been notably absent up until now. Relief at seeing Margo beginning to lick her new lamb turned to worry as we could see the lamb fail to suckle. She butted Margo's flank, her leg, her belly, but never seemed to find a teat and hang on to it. We moved in with the bottle of warm made up colostrum, but the lamb wouldn't or couldn't suckle that either. We moved away again for fear of intervening in the cleaning process for too long. An hour later, still no sign of suckling. I now know that the cleaning process can take up to three hours, and only then may the ewe lick the lamb's bottom and so trigger proper suckling. I also now know that the colostrum can be fed up to 24 hours from birth and still be effective. But I didn't know that then and by now it was dark and the flashlight was distressing Margo, so all we could do was walk away and hope the lamb would make it through the night. I set the alarm for 6 a.m. - "if the lamb dies overnight it will be as dead at 7 a.m. as it is at 6 a.m. so why get up so early" said Dave. Harsh but true. I didn't sleep much that night. By 6:30 a.m., in pyjamas, dressing gown and wellies I was heading back to the field, heart beating fast, tears ready to roll. But there she was, white and fluffy just like her half-brother Alan last year, very wobbly but very much alive. The tears rolled anyway. By 9:30 a.m. she was suckling mum without a problem, and as you can see, Lulu is now a bonny little ewe lamb. 

 

Lassie & the Lambs

It’s hard to watch your kids grow up so fast knowing that one day soon you’ll be eating them with mint sauce. I know there’s no room for sentimentality on a smallholding run by carnivores, and I know naming your food is not a wise move for anyone, never mind a softie who even now wells up at the memory of a traumatic tear-fest of a journey over a year ago when I witnessed a squirrel getting his back leg squished by the car in front. Knowing all this and more, I still can’t help myself. A lamb by any other name would taste as sweet.

When last I blogged my boys were newly born and yet as I write the end is now nigh for Alan and Ceredig. That’s the harsh reality of life on a smallholding. Even so, I was kind of hoping that by now they would have grown into anonymous, characterless sheep, indistinguishable from any other Tom, Dick or Flossie roaming the fields in these parts, sheep whose absence will not be missed. Growing they are – Alan is about to overtake his mother in height and width; characterless they are not. Ceredig is the shy silent type, a handsome ram lamb with long blond lashes who rarely strays far from his mother’s side, and who is usually the loser in the head barging battle of the feeding trough.

Alan is a big, boisterous bruiser of a ram lamb, given to bounding around with Babette, mounting his mother (despite lacking the wherewithal) and generally getting into all sorts of trouble, including the kind of trouble that would end with a lamb joining the great flock in the sky before his time were it not for the quick thinking of Teri “just call me Lassie” Pickworth.

Now there is nothing unusual in Teri disappearing to pass the time of day with the pigs (goodness only knows what they find to talk about but as far as I can tell it usually ends in an argument). What is unusual is Teri re-appearing in a state of high agitation, barking, whining, refusing to be calmed down or distracted by a proffered ball or stick. This was a full on “boy trapped down a well” Lassie impersonation worthy of an audition on “Britain Thinks It’s Got Talent (But Not Really)”. Feeling just a little foolish for falling for this performance, Dave headed up to the field only to discover that just about everyone up there was stressed out – pigs screaming, ewes bleating, lambs wailing. And the cause of this commotion? Why Alan, of course! There he was, eyes bulging, haring hither and thither, dragging behind him the electric fence battery box, the strap of which was tightly wound around his neck. The more he ran, the tighter it got. Who knows what naughtiness with his partner in crime Babette got him into that situation, but there wasn’t a moment to lose if he was to be saved. Whispered words of calm from Dave brought poor Alan to a stand still just long enough for Dave to grasp the strap and free a relieved, gasping Alan, who ran straight to mum for a reassuring nuzzle and guzzle. But this is a lamb who doesn’t learn from his mistakes. Just days later he appeared for breakfast with a missing horn and a bleeding hole in his head that was already providing breakfast for feasting flies and ticks – yuk yuk yukkity yuk! This time it was my turn to mount a solo rescue operation involving cotton wool, surgical spirit, tweezers, anti-biotic spray and insecticide. Bribing the flock with treats to get them all into the pen was easy. Catching, holding and treating Alan was a tad trickier. Nothing is easy to do when you have an upturned, wriggling brute of a lamb wedged between your knees and you’re being buffeted and barged from all sides by his flock mates, each of whom is torn between greed (for the tasty nuts) and fear (of being next in line for a tipping). Alan survived yet another scrape, though not quite unscathed as he now has one stubby horn and one pointy horn!

What Alan and Ceredig don’t know, but we do, is that their play mate Babette will not be joining them on their final journey. A feisty character, a knack for flirting and the virtue of being a ewe lamb not a ram lamb (and no small amount of pleading on my part) have saved her from the chop. She gets to grow up and be a mummy too. If I’m not careful though, my spoilt little lamb will grow up to be a high maintenance ewe. Eating sheep nuts from my hand is being endearing, nudging and nibbling my hand while I’m preparing tea for the pigs is being a pest, bashing the side of the feed bin with your hooves is being just a little bit too demanding!

The Miracle of Life

I watched “All Creatures Great and Small” in the 1980s. Once I even managed to endure a few episodes of “Lambing Live”. I know the words to “Little Bo Peep” and “Baa Baa Black Sheep”. I sent Dave, the King of Courses, on a course (of course). I read every chapter of “The Sheep Book”, even the yucky parts about retained placenta and advanced mastitis. I scared myself with the front leg, back leg, no leg, breach birth diagrams. I discussed the merits of a long slender hand and arm and the importance of trimming long nails before putting a hand anywhere near a sheep’s back end. I toured a lambing shed, oohed and aahed over newborns, tried not to well up over deformed lambs and confronted the reality of a bag of dead lambs. I sent Dave shopping for baby bottles, lubricant and iodine. Be warned, I now own a shiny new castrator.

Yes, as usual I went well and truly over the top to ensure we were prepared for our first lambing. Even the sheep shed got an overhaul, transformed from bus shelter to bigger bus shelter.

 

Meanwhile, Babs, Margo and Myfanwy got bigger and hungrier. Week one of the lambing period came and went. Nothing. Every day Dave would peer at the rear end of a sheep with her nose in the trough and declare “any day now”. And then it happened. Early one Sunday morning, the thudding of boots running upstairs roused me from my snuggle deep down under the duvet - “I think we’ve got a lamb!”. Panic, clothes over pyjamas, grab the lambing kit, bucket of hot water, hurry, hurry. But Mother Nature had no need of us and on a crisp, sunny Easter Sunday morning the first lamb was born at Banceithin. Babs did it all by herself. By the time we arrived on the scene Babette was already licked clean by mum and happily drying and dozing. I’m not ashamed to admit that there might have been a little tear in my eye as I gazed in wonder at this new life.

Over the course of the day, the next day, the day after that, and the day after that, we diligently checked on the flock every two hours. And every two hours the pigs went into a frenzy thinking it was tea time again and again. It seems there really is no limit on the number of times a pig can expect to be fed. There was one lambing false alarm. I could have sworn that the lamb on the other side of the fence was on our side, but nevertheless I promised that in future I would double check and triple check before racing back to the house in a panic. Not once did I see any signs of impending lambing. No thrown back heads or curled lips. No pawing at the ground. No water bag protruding and bursting. Just chewing the cud. So for a second time it happened while our backs were turned. Myfanwy popped into the bus shelter and popped out a ram lamb. We were on the scene more quickly this time though and mum was mid clean and Ceredig mucky and unsteady on his feet, falling not once but twice, my heart lurching not once but twice, “something’s wrong”, “he’s dying”, “he’s dead”.  Ever the optimist.

As spring went from cold to colder, the rain stayed away and the wicked east wind continued to scorch the pasture, the lack of grass for our new mums was becoming a problem. Dave hastily constructed a hay feeder in the pig run fence and we upped the ewe nut rations.

Still without her own lamb, Margo was shunned by Babs and Myfanwy, both of whom quickly developed a “them and us” air of smugness to go with their “feed me now and hurry up about it” attitude. Margo grew bigger and morphed into a giant rugby ball shaped cloud teetering around on tiny legs. Surely it would be twins? And twins means trouble. Two hourly inspections continued. While Margo carried on eating, Ceredig grew in size and Babette grew in size and confidence. The lack of fear of scatter-brained OCD collies is a genetic trait passed from ewe to lamb.

 

Yet again, without showing any sign of going into lamb, Margo squeezed out our third and final lamb. No twins, but from birth Alan was bigger, whiter and fluffier than his cousins. Lady Luck was on our side this year. Three trouble free births. Three healthy lambs. Three diligent mums. I’m told that if you don’t come out of the lambing period shattered, with knackered knees, back ache and smelling of a sheep’s arse, then you’ve had it too easy! What did I do in a previous life to deserve such good fortune?

Driving Home For Christmas

It’s the time of year when folk await the return home of family for festive fun and frivolity. Maybe your kids came home laden with laundry from their first term in the big wide world of university education. Perhaps your siblings flew in from far flung lands. We too were anxiously anticipating the return of family members. Just before Christmas the party ended for Babs, Margo and Myfanwy. Like embarrassing parents turning up at a teenager’s party we arrived to bring our recalcitrant flock of three home from their six week sojourn with their ram fans. Personally I would have thought they might be pleased to see us and welcome a break from the manly ramly attentions. Not so. Spending quality time with ram lambs has not taught them any manners and done nothing to cure them of their “don’t you know who I am” attitude. It came as no surprise to see that Babs was now the dominant ewe and head of the flock, with Margo and Myfanwy as her sub-lieutenants. So alas it was business as usual when it came to rounding them up, with four of us getting plenty of exercise running hither and thither across a squelchy field, brandishing sticks, whooping and generally being made fools of. But round them up we did and initial inspection revealed Babs and Myfanwy as having muddy backs (i.e. suggesting that sheep loving may have taken place), but with Margo having a fleece so suspiciously clean and white as to be worthy of a starring role in a washing powder ad campaign. Someone hadn’t been doing the do! Unless of course she insisted that all rams wipe their cloven hooves before climbing on board….

With the girls hemmed in with the rams there was further indignity to be suffered before home time and so with a daub of blue paint on the back for injection against infections and a daub of green paint on the head for a squirt of wormer, our multi-coloured girls really had joined the ranks of proper Welsh sheep. Mums to be wearing their stripes with pride.

While Babs waited impatiently for her treatment I noticed a short little ram lamb with his nose up to her ear, as though whispering sweet nothings - “I love you Babs, please don’t go, was it something I said, I thought we had something special going on”. I like to think that if life were a Disney movie, it is at this point that Babs would have turned to our little ram, treated him to a demonstration of her well practised down the nose look of contempt, then in a bleating voice sing those immortal words made famous by Beyonce, “if you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it, you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it”. Margo and Myfanwy at the back of the flock swaying to the rhythm and joining in with backing vocals… “all the single ladies, all the single ladies”. Perhaps a pyramid formation dance routine by the ram lambs. Sadly all I actually heard from Babs was a small burp.

Having only a flock of three means it’s not cost effective to arrange a pregnancy scan for our girls so we will have to rely on other signs. Not having access to anchovies, Marmite or pickled herrings, our sheep aren’t likely to display strange eating habits. It’ll be nigh on impossible to notice any mood swings in a regularly moody ewe. There’ll be no knitting of small booties. All we can do is watch and wait, look for signs of bulging (not easy when hidden under an ever thickening fleece) and, in the last 4-6 weeks check for “bagging up”. A delightful phrase that roughly translated means developing udders or, as I preferred to put it when our farming friend explained this agricultural terminology to us, getting big boobies. I’m not sure who was more embarrassed, Dave or Babs!

Eventually the girls were safely stowed in the trailer and it was time to bid farewell to the ram lambs and head home.

As we trundled back down the lanes, Christmas music playing on the radio and the trailer bumping along behind us, in my Disney mind’s eye I could see Babs, Margo and Myfanwy gently swaying side to side with the motion of the trailer, humming along to a familiar Christmas hit…. 

“Driving home for Christmas
Oh, I can't wait to see those faces
I'm driving home for Christmas, yea
Well I'm moving down that line
And it's been so long
But I will be there
I sing this song
To pass the time away
Driving in my trailer
Driving home for Christmas
It's gonna take some time
But I'll get there
Nose to tail behind trailer-gates
Oh, I got red lights on the run
But soon there'll be a driveway
Get my hooves on holy ground
So I sing for you
Though you can't hear me
When I get through
And feel you near me
I am driving home for Christmas
Driving home for Christmas
With a thousand memories
I take a look at the sheep next to me
She's just the same
Just the same
Nose to tail behind trailer gates
Oh, I got red lights on the run
I'm driving home for Christmas, yea”

Resolutions Revisited: The Final Part

Re-reading my Resolutions of a (Nearly) 40 Something I sense that the last one, namely “Be a Better Bo”, was the one I was least expecting to achieve – downgrading my goal from “sense of ownership” to zero deaths in a year was not exactly the act of a confident shepherdess. It’s true to say that my flock of three is no longer with us, but never fear they are still with us in body and soul and our parting of the ways is only a temporary state of affairs.

You won’t be seeing me on “One Man and his Dog” any time soon and I don’t think Babs, Margo and Myfanwy consider themselves “owned” in any way, but I do feel I’ve made some progress towards becoming one with my flock. Ok, so much of the progress has involved bribery with sheep nuts as bait and rounding them up still requires reinforcements in the form of family, friends, cats, dog and passers-by, but, dare I say it, I really am just a little bit fond of my girls. Brave Babs, with her spotty nose, will eat nuts from my hand and stamp her front hooves like a little madam having a tantrum when the nuts run out; tentative Margo will snatch nuts from my hand then back away as though she’s expecting me to whip out an insecticide gun and pair of hoof clippers to give her a once over at any moment; tetchy Myfanwy will eat nuts thrown on the ground at a safe distance then turn tail and scarper at the slightest twitch in her direction. Not quite a shining example of the “bucket training” espoused by shepherds everywhere, but believe me, this counts as progress!

Right now, Myfanwy, Margo and Babs are on holiday up the road in a field belonging to a friendly neighbourhood farmer and his ever so friendly young rams. I gave the girls a pep talk about what to expect. Given my limited knowledge of sheep loving, it wasn’t a long chat and even then they wandered off before I got to the bit about the stork. I obviously hadn’t filled them with enthusiasm as the usual debacle ensued when it came to rounding the flock up for the journey – if you count the dog (which is probably being very generous given how easily distracted she is), we had a ratio of two herders to every sheep and still their little cloven hooves ran rings around us. Time for a cunning plan – cobble together a sheep race using 8 hurdles, a tree lined ditch and pig pen fence line, position family members in the ditch with the brambles, hide the open trailer round a corner at the end of the race, swap the dog for an energetic teenager, hide the dog, fill the bucket with nuts, speak nicely, push up gently, wait patiently, push up gently, wait patiently, swear, push up, wait impatiently, bundle them in, shut trailer – hey presto, easy-peasy lemon squeezy! 

Up the road we get a lesson in trouble free flock moving.

Position one person in the lane…

.. …open gate, flock flows out into lane, flock obediently turns in the right direction and heads towards you….

 

… position two people at the other end of the lane, open other gate, flock obediently turns in the right direction, into field, into holding pen….

  ….. shut gate, congratulate yourself.

Then we played a game of “Who’s the Daddy?”. Now our girls are big old units. Not one of them is some scrawny rag tag poor excuse of a ewe. We needed a trio of young rams who’d be up to the task of mounting our girls without the aid of a stool to stand on. I’m mighty glad it wasn’t my job to single out the chosen ones from the flock and wrestle each one out of the pen. All I had to do was point and say “what about him, he’s got a nice face”. Thankfully others present had a better understanding of relevant criteria against which to judge who might be the right ram for the task ahead and it was nothing to do with job prospects.

   

It was difficult to tell whether the rams were “up for it”, but to say my girls were unimpressed would be to overstate the level of their disinterest in their new field mates. Babs, Margo and Myfanwy promptly trotted off to explore the furthest reaches of their new home.

 

So long girls. See you in six weeks. They grow up so fast. Sigh.