Skip to contentIn the John household the girls are avidly watching ‘Call the Midwife’ in anticipation of February’s new arrivals!
That’s right… with the dawn of spring all sheep farmers across the country are preparing themselves for nights of interrupted sleep, constantly checking on their ewes to see if they need a helping hand.
At Rowley Farm, lambing will start towards the end of February this year and run until approximately the end of March. Lambing can start as early as December in some parts of the country but the majority of farmers will begin in early spring.
The lambing process actually begins in the autumn when the ewes and rams mate and we call this tupping. This in itself is a very specific process as farmers will use several rams at a specific ratio of rams to ewes (usually 1:40-60). This increases the chances of each ewe being covered by a ram within their fertile period and falling pregnant. Ewes are only in season once per year – so unlike other animals that become fertile multiple times a year, there is a short time period for them to fall in lamb.
Just as Humans are scanned during pregnancy, ewes are scanned also to see how many lambs they are carrying. This can help farmers to ensure they get the correct nutrition and also act as an early warning system for those who might need a bit more support during the birth.
Lambs are born 145 days (4.5 months) after the ewe falls pregnant. On our farm we bring all of the ewes into the barn so that we can keep an eye on them. Lambing is very labour intensive and the whole family plays a part in going down to the barn to check which of our ewes are showing signs of labour and if we have had any new borns.
Once the lamb is born, it is it’s important its gets up on its feet quickly and latches onto the ewes teat to get the colostrum (first milk) which is packed with nutrients and antibodies. If this doesn’t happen then we have to intervene. This means milking off some of the colostrum from the mother and hand feeding it to the lamb via a tube, giving the lamb the best chance of survival.
Sometimes our ewes are just not able to look after their offspring. This could be because they are unwell, or that they purely have too many lambs to look after (triplets or quads). In this situation we have to try and find another ewe to adopt the orphaned lamb..
Adoption can happen in a couple of different ways, wet adoption is where the birthing fluid from a new born lamb is transferred to the adoptive lamb so the ewe thinks it is one of her own. Dry adoption happens when a lamb has died, skin is taken from the dead lamb and tied to the orphan lamb so that the mother will recongise the scent. This skin eventually falls off and by this time the mother and lamb recongise each other.
On our farm once the weather turns and the lambs and ewes are doing well, they are turned out into the fields so they can graze on fresh spring grass. We love watching the lambs skip across the fields, it tells the world that spring has arrived.
If you are lucky enough to stay with us during lambing season we welcome our guests helping us check over the ewes and sometimes they are lucky enough to catch the odd lamb being born too.