The sheep were taken to Cam school in Gloucestershire yesterday. This was the first of many sessions I am running for the students there with a focus on animal care. Most of the boys just wanted contact with the animals and they seem to get a lot from petting and feeding them. The aim of the session was just a basic introduction and everyone seemed to enjoy their time with the Devon and Cornwall Longwools. The next sheep session will be held next Thursday and I will be covering health care of sheep.

The sheep are not the only species to visit the school this term. The guinea pigs, hens and sheep dogs will be going to play their part in the boys’ education over the 5 weeks.

My little boy has serviced 12 ewes now and is having a happy time, such a proud ‘mum’.  Today his raddle rayon was changed to green.

This week is going to be spent with many trips to the abattoir and doing some research on ‘value’ adding to our pork and lamb range along with experiments when the meat is delivered back to us.

Educating Mollie

Actually this is more like educating Jane in the wiles of sheepdog training whilst Mollie knows it all, she just wants me to find the words to holler at her.

Her (and my) training started months ago when she was a diddy lickle pup. The aim of training session was just to leave the woolly toys alone and stop yapping at them otherwise they’ll butt you. So I stopped chasing the sheep around the field and yelling at them. Mollie on the other hand was quite indifferent about them until the lambs came along and she made friends with some small and cute woolly backs. So trips to the field for her is like going to see her mates. They run over to her say ‘hi’ and get on with munching on grass. She has a sniff and gets on with dog stuff. And that about sums up Mollies life with sheep…TO DATE. Now is work time. To be fair, she has done a bit of work which mainly involved her herding sheep to parts of the field that we actually didn’t want them to go but she had great fun and they ran their hooves off!

Officially, educating Mollie started a few days ago. Her first command to learn was ‘away’.  She got it within a couple of lessons. I think my rendition of a ‘proper farmer who knows what he is doing’ as I shrieked up the field holding my trusty crook really helped. Made me feel great anyway.

So she got that lesson pretty quickly. So onto ‘come-bye’. This didn’t work so well. She kept on returning to me when I gave the command….WHY ! It took two hours to realise. My intelligent dog was returning to her dim handler because she was hearing ‘come’ the command I use when I want Mollie near. ‘By’ is now our command for clockwise movements. This hasn’t resulted in a great clockwise running Mollie though. Training continues…………….

This week was spent prepping the farm and animals for the winter. Guinea pig indoor runs where assembled. Next week we will start the health checks and the cavies will be vacating their summer houses and snuggling down for the cold weather ahead.

Pallets were obtained for the winter hay and straw. This will be stored next to the field shelter that sits on the lambs’ field. It will also act as a shelter against the bad weather if required.

We have erected a sheep electric fence across one field to provide a safe area for the ewes to be managed nearer to lambing. This field will not be grazed so will provide a little grass for them and be worm free.

Jane, Ramsey and Mollie

Tupping was a little later this year than originally planned. Ramsey developed a dermal problem that required a couple shots of antibiotics. Now happy in his sheepy skin he was put in with the ewes on 16^th October complete with raddle.

He immediately got to work like only a ram could do.

We have a wether from last season lambs staying with us for the rest of his life. Columbus has been adopted by a facebook friend of Ramsey after I wrote about his escaping antics on the social networking site. This left me with a challenge as I didn’t want this young man to live forever in a field and doing nothing but eat, sleep and well you know what! So, I have decided that he will be trained.

On  21^st October, I started to ‘tune’ him into a clicker using ewe nuts or sugar beet as a reward. This will be done a few times before I go any further to ensure he has connected the clicker to the reward.

Columbus

My thoughts have been focussed on tupping. In particular raddle crayons. Not something that anyone would really worry about. Last year I used yellow and then red and this year I had decided on orange and then green. I then started to really think about and analyse the colours I had chosen and what they mean to the process of reproduction and lambing.

So from a colour therapy point of view, what does this say. Well….red is really about basic stuff-survival, instincts, courage, strength, stability and security. Yellow represents power, self, confidence and intellect.

As a new farmer on my own for the first tupping and lambing period , I certainly needed courage and strength to get through this time. I needed instinct to know when something wasn’t right and the confidence to put things right. Importantly, to know when I wasn’t needed…to trust the sheep and allow them also to access their strength and survival instincts too. For me farming is CO-CREATING.

For lambing 2012…what will orange and green bring. Well orange is the colour of creativity…the sheep and I are trying to bring QUALITY new life into the world. Orange is an independent energy that is warm, stimulating and a great joy giver. What can be more joyous than new born lambs for both the ewe and shepherd? The green energy is balance, love and compassion and that of CO-CREATION. Need I say more?

I think the forth coming lambing season will be great. I’m looking forward to being in the orange and green energy with my ewes and their off-spring.

Lambing 2011 is in the distant past and now we are getting ready for the next cycle of sleepless nights and cold ‘bits’.

So, What’s happened since my last blog?

Firstly, we have moved our sheep onto another farm. Don’t want to get into a diatribe about the last person we rented off, so we will leave it at that.

I am much happier were we now are….and so are the sheep. It isn’t our own though; this is creating some frustration as I can’t manage them or the land in the way I would wish to. It is all a learning curve and I am sure that one day we will be running our own farm in our own way.

The lambs are growing well. Rams will be going to slaughter at the end of October. Some of the ewes love to walk the fields with me when stock checking and like to be where the ‘action’ is. I am hoping they will be great breeding ewes in the future.

Ramsey… what can I say! A star….of the field and facebook. He is running with the ram lambs at present and looks after them so well. Such a nice natured ram with a strong body and gentle soul.

He has had his yearly MOT and is now being prepared for tupping. This year we will be lambing slightly later than last on the account that I am on jury duty and don’t want to leave him raddled up with too longer periods without observation. I’m also thinking about my comfort too. I would prefer to lamb with a little bit of sunshine on my skin and a bit of grass on the ground for the ewes.

I’m hoping to match this year’s ewe/ram lamb ratio through managing the flock in exactly the same way again, through good nutrition, mineral licks and homeopathics.

The chicken numbers have increased due to Agnus going into brood again. This time 5 hatched with 3 being hens and the other two were cockerels. They are a mixed bunch of breeds including a Cuckoo Maran hen and cockerel, Buff Sussex and Welsummer cockerel and hen. The Cuckoo Maran cockerel has gone to live on a friends farm with many chook ladies and the Welsummer cockerel is still here strutting his stuff.

During the spring I mentored a few students from the local school for a learning and skill improvement service. These students came to Broadstone and helped with the guinea pigs. They cleaned them out, took photos, learned how to MOT a boar and sow for mating and caring for the new born guinea pig infants. I loved the experience and I hope the young folk did too.

The guinea pigs have increased in numbers and now I have a breeding herd of about 30. We have babies all year round with the majority being born in the winter and spring.

Things in general are GOOD at Broadstone