Shearing

With a rattle of a plastic sheep feed bag it is easy to get most of the flock into the race. We keep sheep in the race that are not going to be sheared as this makes the other sheep less stressed. Sheep here are in good condition, and there is a beautiful view of the Eildon hills.

Sheep with mucky bums get wormed, others are wormed on this grass keep as two of our lambs died from lung fluke last year and our flock recently suffered tapeworm infection.

One side sheared.

This black sheep wool has become lighter with the sun, underneath her wool is grey. This fleece will make interesting twine when I begin spinning this year.

I usually act as an assistant passing Charlie shears, wormer drench and fly spray, I also help him round up the sheep, open and close gates.

A lamb watches her penned mother ewe; these lambs are more reluctant to enter the pen than their mothers.

Sheared, I asked Charlie why he left the belly wool, he did not acknowledge the question. So of the lambs get weird about their mother ewes being sheared, sometimes they don't recognise them which can cause problems.

We walked to the sheep drinking trough, Charlie wash sheep shit off his hands and filled his water bottle up; I used to drink from the mains pipe, when I was rambling and camping.

Whilst Charlie was busy I walked around the grass keep perimeter, and found tow pieces of yard long plastic twice; why leave these in our field? this hawthorn hedging is strange.

Back at Woodburn farm a ewe was treated with an anti-inflammatory Metacam injection / antibiotic footspray. A wet, mild winter caused the flock problems on Woodburn paddock.

Charlie administers the subcutaneous injection into the neck behind the ewes ear; in a few hours I am happy to know she'll be feeling much better.

The cade lamb pictured below was born with a deficiency we cured with a series of selenium injections.

Then a tapeworm infestation almost killed her, we returned her to bottled milk and changed our wormer, a month later she has overtaken other lambs.

This year we have let part of our kitchen garden go to seed, there are turnip and carrot flowers present on 5ft high stalks, the muck also breaking down into soil quiet rapidly.

Our beetroot and onions have grown, but our bean plant leaves have been eaten away. Potatoes are growing faster from seed this year than they did from old left over potatoes.

Late afternoon we done a welfare check on our flock in the Craik Forest and examined a nearby field we'll be using as grazing soon. I have more video clips to include later, when a faster broadband connection can be utilised.