Not only is the sun shining but it is warm enough for ‘Boots’ to be in shorts!
A rather unusual week in that calving rather than lambing has dominated. We had expected by this weekend to have lambed at least 35 out of the 70 ewes that went early to the tup and possibly to have had a couple of new calves. The reverse has been the case. In theory we might get eight calves this spring, already we have six and only one of these was a breech birth though that is not to say calving has not taken a fair amount of time and effort from Tim, Chris and Katja.
A rather unusual week in that calving rather than lambing has dominated. We had expected by this weekend to have lambed at least 35 out of the 70 ewes that went early to the tup and possibly to have had a couple of new calves. The reverse has been the case. In theory we might get eight calves this spring, already we have six and only one of these was a breech birth though that is not to say calving has not taken a fair amount of time and effort from Tim, Chris and Katja.
The lamb count last night was a modest 24 – modest only in that we had expected nearer 60! There have been some losses but given the ewes lambing now are ‘first timers’ matters could have been much worse. For this year we have changed the location of our ‘orphanage’ and placed it in the Orchard next to the pond. The structure is based on the pen we used for our guinea fowl but substantially modified to ensure proper shelter for the ‘orphans’ Strictly speaking our four lambs currently in occupation are not orphans at all but are lambs taken away from their mothers either because of rejection or lack of sufficient milk.
The shelter almost, but not quite an architectural work of art, is the creation of Tim, Katja and Antje.
Our Wwoofers are almost entitled to feel that they have been short changed since their hope was to see many lambs born but at least Antje, before she went back to normal life, experienced lambing twins! We were all very sorry she could not stay longer but without any doubt one of the downsides of Wwoofing is having made new friends then having to say good bye too soon.
I started with the weather and as a farmer cannot just leave matters on a positive note! Earlier in the week we had an amazing amount of rain which meant it was until yesterday that standing water could be found on many of our fields.
Enough, the lambing team of Chris, Tim, Kiernen, Katja and Leslie will undoubtedly be faced with much more to do very soon. It hurts slightly to see a silver lining but the delay in the arrival of lambs and the arrival of new tags has at least given more days for the grass to grow!
On other fronts things seem to be going well – we are expecting a number of school visits over the next couple of weeks, have a lambing day on the 17th and will be welcoming investors to the AGM of the Benefit Society on the 30th when aside from time to walk and explore the farm and lambing progress there will also be meat and other produce for sale.
Our garden team are hoping to start supplying salad crops to Worcester Roots by the middle of this month and the garden now just awaits sunshine, warmth and less rain to spring into life. Ulula(Facebook.com/ululaorganic)has completed its first month of trading and people are obviously delighted to be able to buy organic baby foods including products suitable for vegetarians
Yours, Farmer Adrian