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| 31/03/2008 |
| Spring just around the corner |
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Spring is around the corner, it must be as I drove to Alnwick yesterday I passed a host of golden daffodils in full bloom!!
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That was 3 weeks ago and since we have suffered cold winds, white out showers lasting anything from minutes to one hour. As a result it was impossible to get the lambing ewes in the pens to dose for worms and their booster injection. We did manage that on Wednesday and move them into the maternity wing, we started on Friday with 5 sets of twins 5 days early and several more over the next couple of days but today March 31st has been manic; every time we entered the field we encountered a couple of ewes deciding to lamb in the same place (pinchers) as we call them. The first ewe has her first lamb and while she delivers her second one or third as the case may be another ewe very close to lambing comes along and adopts the first lamb taking it away from its original mother, it maybe only a few yards then when she delivers her own she will either reject the pinched lamb or her own depending on her preference and once they have been separated the original Mum is not always keen to take her offspring back. This can cause great problems: sometimes they will sort themselves out and go off in there own directions with two lambs each but more often then not they have to be penned for couple of days until they accept both lambs and then put into a small croft until we are sure that they are cable able of being turned into the larger field. Well I hope you all had a happy Easter even though it was cold and there were frequent snow showers. We are off the planet for the next 2 weeks at least. I will be out and about after lambing so please come and say hello. Cheers Helen |
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