We put the Rams out with the ewes on New Years Day, every year (occasionally the next day, depending on the night before!!). This has them ready for lambing on June 1st. For the last couple of months the nutrition of the ewes is crucial to the success of lambing. Ideally the ewes that are […]
October 2014 was my last post! I’ve thought about writing so many times, but it has always been a question of where to start!! But I figure if I don’t start, I never will so this post will just be a “where are we now” post!! The Farm 2015 was a very dry year for […]
We have seven calves on the ground so far. The first one was a fortnight ago. Most of the cows have had at least one calf previously,so we expected it to go fairly smoothly. But surprise, surprise, the very first calf had us a bit worried. I had been watching the cow all morning and […]
We have added to the menagerie – with a beautiful little black Shetland pony called Marley. We had been looking for a few months, and actually saw her advertised on Facebook. They were offering a trial period so I felt we couldn’t really lose out. And as soon as we saw her everyone fell in […]
I mentioned in the last post that we are up to five orphan lambs now, which makes it very tricky for one person to feed them. A few years ago we invested in a milk feeder that will feed 5 at a time, and we’ve used it nearly every year since. One year we actually […]
So we have five orphaned lambs now! The original one, Mischeifa, is going great. He’s grown lots, and is really fit and healthy. The second two lambs we got were named Bobby, and Boris. They were both found off by themselves on different days, and quite weak. Not sure why – we have had a […]
We had another lovely day yesterday (today is exceptionally cold, rainy and windy!! Great winter weather), so I couldn’t resist grabbing my camera as I headed out to check the lambing ewes. Look away now if you don’t like gory/ unfortunate photos. This little lamb has had its tail bitten off by a fox. […]
I couldn’t write about this yesterday, it was too stressful! I mentioned on Tuesday’s post that the weather was blustery. It turned out that it was the windiest day we had had in a very long time! So much so, that our wonderful new DIY chook pen blew over. I couldn’t believe it. I was […]
It is a blustery, wintery day here today. Cold, wet and windy! Our winter equinox was on the weekend, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that we are getting winter weather – but it makes going outside very unappealing! We crutched our rams on the weekend, which was a job we had been putting […]
Our ewes started lambing about three weeks ago. They are actually due to start on the 1st June ( because we put the rams in on New Years Day, and they have a 6 month gestation period). However they always seem to start about a week early. I try and get around the ewes at […]