Lambing - a tiny insight into a sheep farmer's day

All the photos in this post were taken at the lambing placement I was on this year and last.

One thing that cannot fail to put a smile on someone's face is the sight of lambs skipping and playing in the fields, marking the fact that spring has finally arrived!

One thing that people don't always realise is the amount of time and effort to get them there.

Lambing itself is the busiest time of the sheep farmer's calendar and in my opinion the most exhausting but amazing experience!

Here is a typical day at the farm I visited:
5:00am - Farmer's alarm went off

5:20am - Farmer arrived at farm

6:40am - My alarm went off

7:00am - I arrived at farm

7:00 - 8:30am - if anything needed lambing it was lambed.  Any newborns squirted with spectam (to reduce scour) and their umbilical

cords dipped in iodine solution to dry it up to prevent infection.  Sheep are penned up with their newborns (sometimes a lot harder than it sounds!)  All pens need to be watered, given nuts and hay.

Iodining

8:30am - Breakfast yum yum!

9:00-12:30pm - continue water if not finished and penning up, squirting and iodining.  When lambing you have to be aware of what is going on at all times, if any are in the early stages of labour you should know, and keep an eye on them to know when something is wrong and you need to intervene. We take regular trips round the field to pick up any that have lambed and keep an eye on those who seem to be taking a bit too much time.  The most common problems are lambs that are too big for the ewes, legs back, head back or backwards.  All of these reasons would lead to prolonged labour and would, the majority of the time, require human intervention.

12:30pm - Lunch and at my placement Bargain Hunt time!

1:00pm-4pm - More lambing if required, keeping a close eye on the shearlings if they have been at it since morning - shearlings are first-time mums and usually take a bit longer than other sheep to lamb, so we keep them separate so we can keep an extra eye on them (they can take hours sometimes!).  The problem with shearlings is that lots of them do need lambing, but you should only intervene in one if you really have to, because a lot of the time they don't realise the lamb is theirs. If you lamb her, she may reject her lamb/s.  The most important moment in my opinion is when the lambs have just been born and the natural instinct of their mum kicks in and she licks them.

The licking stimulates the heart to pump blood around the body as they can no longer rely on the umbilical cord and also removes the membrane from the lamb.  All lambs are born in a membrane and some are even encased in afterbirth, so if mum doesn't lick it away quickly they drown.  That is another reason you have to keep an eye on the shearlings! I had one this year through no fault of its mothers, fighting for survival: it was pure chance I was passing through the shed at the time and I saw this small movement in the straw, so I rushed across to it as fast as I could when I saw no mum licking - she was a twin and the ewe seemed to have given up on this lamb and was focusing on the other lamb.  It was encased in afterbirth and I hadn't seen anything like it before and I was trying to get through this tough layer of

 

membrane - absolutely no chance it's mother could have licked through it, it was tough! I got through it at the very last moment I could have done, it wasn't breathing and I saw just a single faint heartbeat.  I cleared all airways and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed to try and stimulate its blood, but it still wasn't breathing so I started swinging it to try and clear it's airway, still to no avail. (Normally you swing till you see movement or a cough or something.) Still nothing.  So last resort - open the lambs mouth and breath into it.  After 3 breaths and nearly giving up hope we got a sneeze.  It is immensely rewarding when you try so hard and put all your effort in, and it pays off, whether it be something like this, or lambing twins/triplets where you know that both lambs, if not both lambs and mum would have died if you hadn't intervened.  Then ringing and spraying.  The most common method of castrating is ringing.  You put a sterile ring on which cuts off the blood supply so the tissue dies and drops off, same applies with the tail.  Castration is so there is no unwanted babies next lambing time and tail removal is to prevent fly-strike.  You mark the lambs and ewe with the same number so if separated in the field they can be reunited and we put a red dot on their head in case they go wandering of into a neighboring farm.  All afternoon ewes are lead out with their lambs to nearby fields to make room for tomorrows lot in the pens.  Only ones with lambs that are big enough, have enough milk, and aren't adopted go out and are wormed and if they need feet trimming, have that done before they go out too.  If they need close attention they stay in.  To make room for ones in the nearby fields, ones that are about a week old get moved by wagon to further away fields.  So lots of catching and counting required! 

4:00pm - sheep's dinner time.  Go round and do the same as morning - lots of nuts, hay and water.

5:00pm - tea time! and a short rest!

5:45pm - Finish any feeding and go round the fields as usual and then check the nearby fields for any ewes having problems, for example, any that may have an infection and need some antibiotics and also check for lost lambs or rejected lambs.  Finally keep an eye on any others due to lamb in the near future and see if they need assistance before we go in.

Depending on how much is happening determines how early or late we go inside.  Last year was quite busy as I came at the start of lambing time so we would get in about 9/10ish and they would be checked on every 2 hours as there were lots of us.  This year they were left through the night as there wasn't as many of us, but the farmer arrived at 5am and doesn't leave till late so they are only normally left 6 or so hours.  If you are not used to such work regularly it is amazing how early you end up going to bed.  Bedtime was definitely directly proportional to the number of sheep wrestled that day.  This year: first night 10:30pm, second night 10:10pm, third night 9:50pm, fourth night 9:30pm and fifth night 9:10pm! I had an incredible time as usual, and I would have stayed for soooooooo much longer if exams weren't looming and I didn't have to walk 80km on my Gold DofE the week after!  I hope everyone liked this post and feels the same admiration for sheep farmers everywhere at lambing time as I do after having an insight into their daily lives at lambing time!