Picture it, feel it – it’s mid to late October, the barn is full of summer-smelling meadow hay, the hedgerows are heavy with delicious brambly fayre and the trees are resplendent with the golden hues of autumn. The sun still has a little warmth and treats us to exquisite sunsets and sunrises – it is my favourite time of year. I love to see the dappled sunlight peeking through the trees with the last afternoon sun. We are still in the honeymoon period of the summer and the winter seems an age away.
Wooing bleats of romance have been echoing through the fences and over the hedges for several weeks – nature speaks to the ewes and tups and tells them it is time. Iain and Kool are looking forward to a busy few weeks doing what they do best. There have been times when the urge for love is so great, that the tups or the ewes break into one-another’s field despite there being several fences or hedges between. The call for love is strong at this time of year and should they mingle prior to our carefully curated time; the task of returning said escapees back to their own respective fields is tricky. The tups have a crucial job to do, to provide us with good lambs and every other year new blood in our flock. Ultimately, to provide animals to improve the flocks and some to sell at market. They are responsible for 50% of our flock’s quality – it is worth investing in a top-notch ram.
We strap them up with their coloured crayons, lead them (yes, lead them) to their respective field of passion, let them go and watch. The watching bit always seems wrong, but we do it anyway. There is little ‘sheepishness’ now
‘Look at him go’
‘She’s keen, but she’s always been a saucy madam’
‘Ooh look, she’s giving him the run-around’
‘wrong end, mate’
And one that has become a firm favourite, despite we no longer have said tup ‘Jim’s in’
‘I wonder what we will get next spring?’
Are some of the things Paul and I utter to one another as we take a farmer lean on the five-bar gate – whilst Paul is getting his breath back after his walky run (see below) Settled in the fact that the start of the lambing cycle has begun again. We always bestow on the boys and girls a pat on the head, a little bit of a good luck and light-heartedly state our preference (politely) for nicely marked ewe lambs with a straightforward birth, please. At this point, lambing is a time in the future viewed via rose-tinted spectacles… It is currently not too cold, we’re full of energy as we sleep all night, summer isn’t such a distant memory, mud may still be at a minimum and it is light for more than 10 minutes per day. It’s exciting and our annual lean and sheepy voyeurism on the gate is part and parcel of this. We can’t wait for lambing…
This is the start of the lambing cycle. We have carefully selected the tups and the ewes, making sure (as they are pedigrees) that their shared lineage is non-existent or distant and their breeding is top notch. Ensuring that the tups we’ve introduced have met the breed standard, and as far as is possible making sure that you can actually go in the field with them without risking your life or legs. A bunt up the bum from one of our large powerful rams is no laughing matter. Funnily enough, they do seem to have their favourites. Jim was always fine with me, but did take affront Paul from time to time, Iain just loves everyone (and everyone loves him for the sheer cuteness factor), Sampson was in two minds about humans; he had an air of superiority about him and Kool is a bit of a weirdo, but kind of cool as a cucumber and loves a head scratch and will often lollop over to you for one. They’re all different and have characters of their own. That said, I would never trust a ram, or turn my back on one – not even Iain. I wouldn’t fancy one of those long curly horns up my jacksy.
Iain, our Swiss Valais Black Nose tup was purchased from a distance away, because of our keenness to buy the best we can afford. Our drive home was interesting; rather than haul a sheep trailer to Northampton, we decided that Iain would fit nicely into the back of our pick-up. Our first sighting of him compared to the pick-up just made us realise that actually we had to lift a very large tup – think Shetland pony size – into the back of the truck – the size to receive him and for him to travel was ample and comfortable, but the lift was high. Geoff Capes would have struggled. He was fine and compliant, but very heavy – there was a lot of puffing and panting – by us and not him, he was as calm as the day is long. He was, and still is, a good boy! All the way home he decided to stand upsquare facing those cars behind us on the M5 giving drivers an amusing view of a large white curly animal, his beautiful curls being blown around like a super-model and his great big twisted horns akin to a mythical creature not of this world. We stopped at the services half-way back to use their facilities, get a cuppa etc and when we arrived back at the truck, he had quite the adoring gathering. He had become a minor celebrity with people taking pictures and selfies of the cuddly sheepand folks wanting to know all about him. His name, Iain seemed to cause some hilarity too. He seemed to know how handsome he really was and played the crowd. He received a fair-amount of oohs, ahhs and nose-tickles – a mobile petting farm (could this be a thing?)
So back to the present, as we lead the tups down to their respective passion paddocks their trot gets a little faster and Paul has to do one of those funny walky runs to keep up. The sort of walky run where you are still in control but need to up your speed due to the eagerness of the animal on the end of the rope – an amorous ram is surprisingly wilful, strong and nimble – the route is also downhill. He has a determined look in his eyes (not Paul); he’s on his annual mission – he knows!It makes me laugh every time. And as, of course, I would not like to see Paul trip up during his walky run, there is a part of me that hopes, if he does, I am filming it. I think it would be similar to a James Herriot moment. I am also wondering about the £200 promised by the BBC for funny videos. Why not milk it if it happens? Who am I to take advantage of a little bit of farm diversification if it presents itself. Farming is financially tough!
As we check the fields each evening for signs of ‘service’ (not the mobile phone type) we eagerly scan the tops of the ewe’s bums for the tell-tale sign that the coloured crayon has made contact – you know what I mean. I write these down obsessively for the first few weeks and then as soon as the clocks change this goes awry and it’s guesswork as we can’t see to monitor. All the more exciting come March and April (!) There are occasions when the ewe has a crayon mark on her head or her side – young tups are usually to blame. Eager, but wrong end. They soon work it out, but it still makes us laugh. Kool and his gang and Ian’s curly gals are ready to get down to business.
Fast forward to late February / early March when the whole flock come into the sheds to lamb. We try hard to leave this as late as possible, particularly if the weather has been mild. We usually aim for approximately a week before the first due date – approximately 147 days after tupping. The reason for this is so that the ewes, who can be susceptible to pneumonia and just about any illness you can think of, are out in the fresh air as long as it possible. The longer they are in, the more likely there are problems. So why do we lamb them inside? Primarily, we find it easier to manage, we can monitor, spot and react to problems more easily and in a timely manner; it’s dry, we have electric lights and all of our lambing resources are clean, dry and on hand should they be needed. During my childhood life on the farm, late at night torch-searching under hedges to find hypothermic lambs whose mum had wandered off was my least favourite part – some sheep are just not good mothers, particularly if they’re first-timers, they don’t always do what should come naturally – human intervention and assistance is not uncommon. I have very recently acquired a kick in the face from a ewe that just did not want to feed her lambs as I was trying to unsuccessfully intervene. Lambing inside also means there are less likely to be predators – birds (we have a lot of Red Kites by us) or foxes who will take or kill new-born lambs – particularly when the afterbirth etc is on the ground – it attracts things you don’t want to attract. The wonders of modern technology means that we can monitor remotely with a camera and a SIM card from the comfort of a warm bed throughout the night and only getting up if necessary. This is better than putting on an ice cold pair of wellies over your PJ’s and trudging outside with a torch in the dark and cold at 3:00am! A caveat to this is when the ewe you are watching decides to lie down around the corner of the only bit the camera doesn’t reach; up you get… My grandad would be amused, amazed – or untrusting of such modernity’s. He’d also view it as soft or cheating. I can see him now, a wry smile, tutting and shaking his head whilst getting his sou’wester on and finding his torch ready for a moonlit tramp over the ‘back field’. He was old school through and through and he didn’t do a walky run… at 6 foot 4inches his legs were long enough to keep up!
Happy tupping and good luck to all sheep farmers out there!
• Crayon – the marker we use to identify when the deed has been done – We use two per tupping three weeks apart
• Tups – another name for a ram
• Lineage – the pedigree line
