Wednesday November 27, 2013

Day 25..

Today started off with a health and safety recap as this is extremely important when working in and around a farm yard, whereby even getting in and out of a tractor should be thoughtfully considered - using the three point contact method, to ensure that any risk of tripping and falling out of the tractor is minimised.

This lead to risk assessments, the requirements and the information required to carry out risk assessments around the farm yard and while at work in a field. We were shown a number of real life farm yard scenes and had to fill out a risk assessment form noting the risk, the consequence of the hazard, what precautions were already in place, what further precautions and or steps needed to take place along with a realistic time frame. It is important to only list those items that are achievable  otherwise upon an inspection you will have failed to properly comply with regulations!

This afternoon we undertook some routine sheep flock checks - looking over the ewes as they enter their third cycle of heat, where after being with the rams should all have now been mated. We changed the raddle markers on two rams, as this will show up those ewes that have been caught on later cycles and consequently picked up by these later rams.

The ram who was lame last week was still visibly lame, so he was caught and the foot checked over again. A week on and the foot seemed to be no better, it was very swollen and had a bloody discharge. The foot and lower part of the leg were very tender to the touch and clearly causing the ram some discomfort.

He was injected with more painkiller to relieve the immediate pain, but following additional investigation, dom believed the ram could have some sort of growth in his foot causing the swelling and bleeding, and that a vet should be called in this instance.. Will update with further news as received.

We then carried out some general husbandry, removing two rams from ewe flocks as they have now finished maying, and relocating them to a small holding paddock.

Then, we choose two ewe lambs from the young flock, and brought them back to home farm for the night in a make shift pen - ready for the schools nativity plays over the next couple of days, where real life animals have star roles!!! Ho baa ho