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Sally Nex

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Sally Nex

Tag Archives: sheep

We interrupt this tour of Guernsey with an announcement…

03 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by sallynex in self sufficiency, sheep

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Dorset Down, lambing, lambs, self-sufficiency, sheep, smallholding

A little interlude from my tour around the Garden Isle, as I have a little news I wanted to share…

lamb1

Our first arrival came along on Friday afternoon. Slightly took me by surprise, if I’m honest, as we weren’t due any lambs till Tuesday, and I hadn’t even seriously started checking the ewes regularly yet. But I turned up for the usual afternoon feed to find my oldest and most experienced ewe, Apple, on her side and in the middle of giving birth.

They look very pathetic when they first emerge: I try to stop myself interfering too much if I can possibly help it though as the ewe knows best what to do. In this case all I did was to make sure the mucus was cleared away from the lamb’s nostrils and it was breathing OK, then lifted a leg to find out what we had – a ewe lamb, as it turns out. How lovely: that means we can keep her. The kids have already named her Sugar….

This particular ewe normally has twins, so it was a surprise to have her with a single for the first time: I had been worrying that she was smaller than usual this close to lambing, and now I know why.

We waited with them till the lamb was up on her feet and had taken her first feed: it took a while, about half an hour, but she figured it out in the end. I towelled her down a little as it was chilly and they do come out sopping wet: then I sprayed her navel thoroughly with iodine. This is a key point of entry for infection so you have to be diligent: I sprayed it twice more over the next 12 hours or so just to make sure. You can tell when it’s healed well because it dries up and shrivels with no swelling by the belly.

lamb2

What a difference a day makes. By Saturday morning she was up and about and though a little wobbly still, very healthy, taking an interest in her surroundings (and her mum’s milk supply!) and even trying a little skip, though she did fall over mostly. Her eyes are clear too – very important as we have a little inturned eyelashes in our flock, easy to fix but you have to be quick as it’s a very painful condition.

lamb3

And this is what you want to see. Mum healthy, eating and feeding well: later today, after two days inside where I can keep an eye on them, they’ll be going out in the field with a companion for company, and we’ll be waiting for the remaining two to arrive.

End of month view: November

30 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by sallynex in end of month view, sheep

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book, chard, leeks, Nablopomo, November, sheep, winter

eomv1

The veg garden is looking exceptionally woolly and wind-blown at the moment as it subsides gradually into its winter hibernation: good sprouts under them nets though

It’s been November for a whole four weeks now. Season of dreary rain and hat-snatching wind: season of no gardening and damply sloshing wellington boots and mud and dead brown sadly broken stems.

But let’s not get depressed. There are still reasons to be cheerful (honest!):

    • I’ve done it! Against all the odds, I have posted every day this month and completed NaBloPoMo, along the way retrieving my blogging mojo and having a thoroughly interesting time
eomv2

…and the spring cabbages are coming along nicely

    • I have handed in the manuscript of my book! At last! Somewhat late but more or less intact. They tell me now comes the difficult bit – bashing it into shape before publication next Easter; but I don’t care. I’m just really, really happy I’ve finished writing it.
eomv3

The terrace garden… oh dear.

    • It’s nearly Christmas! (Don’t care what all you grumpy bumpies say: I love it)
    • And it’s nearly the winter solstice! Which means we only have a few more weeks to wait till the evenings get brighter
eomv5

…but the yellow-stemmed chard is a bit fabulous and still going strong…

    • My sprouts are HUGE! The hugest, in fact, I think I’ve ever grown
    • I own a piano for the first time in about 20 years. Now all I need is some sheet music.
eomv4

…and one of my best-ever leek crops is in this bit too

    • The sweet rocket is still flowering (even though I couldn’t get a picture of it: you’ll just have to take my word for that one)
    • The prickly pear cactus didn’t get frosted even though I left it outside in minus-one temperatures
eomv6

The back garden sagging slightly under the weight of all that rain…

    • I have planted a LOT of tulips
    • I am booked in for three slap-up Christmas dinners in the next few weeks. And that doesn’t even count the real one.
    eomv7

    …but even on the drabbest of days these two cheer me up. Ewok and Custard, enjoying their winter break eating the hedges and occasionally the lawn (the bit they’re meant to eat)

Feeling sheepish

09 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by sallynex in self sufficiency, sheep

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Dorset Down, self-sufficiency, sheep, smallholding

sheep

Left to right: Cream, Pie and Apple, my breeding ewes

It’s been a busy month on the sheep front.

My little flock of Dorset Downs is generally pretty low-maintenance: a quick daily check plus a longer session every six weeks or so to do feet and bums and that’s about it.

But twice a year I have to pay them a lot more attention.

The first, unsurprisingly, is spring, when it’s lambing time. I become ever so slightly obsessed by my sheep through April and May – to the point where I actually turn down work so I don’t have to leave them.

Considering how much they give me in return – three lambs in the freezer this year, that’s our year’s supply of meat plus one to sell, give away or have parties with – I don’t really complain.

The second time of year they need my undivided time is now, in late autumn, when the cycle starts all over again.

First I take the year’s ram lambs over to the abattoir: by then they’ve been separated from the rest of the flock for a month or two in a little field over the road, eating their heads off and turning into teenagers. At this point they start being really annoying (getting their heads stuck in fences, escaping from time to time, pulling down wire and generally making a nuisance of themselves) so I’m usually quite pleased to see them go.

At about the same time I separate off this year’s ewe lambs: this year, in fact, just one, which means the spare sheep (known as Ewok for her fetching fringe) goes with her. And since I’ve got them in, I give the breeding ewes a once-over to make sure feet are trimmed and all is well: this is the last time I’ll look at them till the ram goes home after Christmas.

It’s not been the best of years for the breeding ewes: I lost one of my best, Blackberry, to a twisted gut this summer (Custard, the ewe lamb, is her orphan). Just one of those things: all sheep farmers will tell you that where you’ve got livestock, you’ve got deadstock (and that sheep die for a living – I’ve found that one less true, though maybe I’ve just been lucky).

So the result is that I’ve got three to lamb again this year: suits me fine, as one is my other oldest breeding ewe and Blackberry’s half-sister, Apple, who always produces twins (she’s the one on the right in the picture above). Then there’s her daughter Pie – front left – and Cream, back left, who’s lambing for the first time this season. So that’s at least four lambs if all goes well – and all I really need is two, to keep us fed. Anything else is a bonus: one of the nicest things about aiming for self-sufficiency rather than profit is that there’s no pressure to produce any more than you need.

ram

Who’s a handsome boy then?

And that’s my next task: off to fetch the ram, which I rent from a proper Dorset Down farmer about an hour’s drive from here in Dorset. It’s always a bit of a heart-in-mouth journey. Last year I could hear the ram hurling himself at the sides of the small aluminium trailer every time I stopped at a traffic light: this year, thank goodness, I’ve ended up with a less suicidal chap who also happens to be quite pretty. Still didn’t hang around long at traffic lights though.

All that done, it’s calmed down a bit round here. I scratch the noses of Ewok and Custard each morning on my way up to let out the chickens, then spend five minutes hanging over the fence to check the three breeding ewes plus ram; and that’s pretty much it, set fair for the next few months.

You count five months forward to estimate the first new arrival – so that’s lambs from 7 April, I hope!

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