Friday October 11, 2013

Day nine..

Rain stops plough play! So it's off to play with some sheep instead!

Today we were on hand to help sort out some lambs for market (sad I know), it started by rounding them into our penning area but that proved too much for two or three who were really weak little things, and Dom ended up fetching them from the field in his car (with his handbrake still on) and we put them in a separate pen away from the others.

We got underway by sorting them in to two new groups, those for market this weekend and those to be kept for finishing off for lamb packs. This was relatively painless with the funky sheep handling system - catching them, letting them out the side door or letting them out forwards. Which door they went out of depended on how much 'meat' was felt across the back, how much of a handful there was from behind and a general eye over - undertaken by the farm bailiff Neil.

Within the 'fattening up' pen 8 of the best looking ewes were marked as keepers to be retained by the farm and then they were all let back into the field.

In the market pen the lambs were checked for dags (poopy bums) and cleaned up where necessary. One was found with fly strike (maggots round the back end) and these were removed and some antiseptic spray applied. We then had to put tags in their ears.. One in each - one is the farms unique identification number and the other is used to tag that particular sheep. I had a go at this using a sheep friendly ear piecing machine that punches the tag straight through the ear.. Being a girl I did wonder if this was hurting them but my method was the quicker the better! And that seemed to get the job done! These were then loaded onto the cattle trailer and taken to the farm where they will stay until morning.

Neil then returned to collect the poor doers and will see if they respond to some extra vitamins and minerals, if not I'm afraid they will be put out of their misery!

The collection of sheep included rouges, mules, beltex and something else that I can't remember! But rest assured lil lammies.. I'm still a vegetarian and you'll not end up on my dinner plate x