Lambing Time

Lambing has started. The first lambs arrived on the dot two days ago, the day they were due and a set of quads which was a very good start. They were closely followed by twins and then triplets. They are all doing well though the Farmer is feeding them supplementary milk with stomach tube to make things easier for the ewes. There is steady trickle of lambs now each day, with two sets of twins today and so far all is going smoothly.

We are lambing only 40 ewes which is easy, not like thed ays when we had a hundred or more. Of course there are many farmers who are lambing several hundred sheep at a time and make our small-scale sheep keeping pale into insignificance, nonetheless, each ewe that lambs successfully is a small triumph, whether it is one of 400 or 40.
This is a lovely time of year despite the weather having turned colder and greyer these last couple of days. Lambs, daffodils, snowdrops, hazel catkins commonly known a lambs-tails for obvious reasons, and the ever increasing cacophony of birdsong all make for a sense of anticipation of the delights in the summer to come.