Sunday, April 12, 2009

Lambing - Day 3

Today is Easter Sunday and after a week in Scotland, I'm back lambing :)
Johns sheep have all come in now, so they are all in the new shed and have been lambing since the start of last week. There are only a few (about 20) of Louises sheep left to lamb.
I got to the farm at 9ish and got started with the waters and hays, then bedded down all the pens. John is feeding his sheep a mixed up feed of corn and wheat because it is a lot cheaper - instead of the sheep nuts Louise uses - so we fed the sheep with that. Theres a pen of cade lambs now, so they all needed feeding with milk, along with the weaker lambs or the ewes with no milk in the smaller pens.
There were no spare small pens, so we moved some of the stronger twins back into the bigger pens, and then put the newborn lambs and their mothers into the spare smaller pens.
Louise and John went to move some sheep, so I got on to rubber ringing, numbering and clipping the ewes feet - Johns lambs aren't scabivax'ed.
The livestock trailer which John was using for his sheep needed washing aswell as one of the turkey trailers - so I was the lucky person who got to do that. I wet it all so that it would be easier to clean. I got rid of all the dried blood on the floor and walls, and then washed the rack which the turkeys are hung up on. Then I started on the trailer, putting water through the windows to push all the muck down to the front with the jetwash. I climbed upstairs and started cleaning the floor and getting all the poo off the was dried onto it, which took most of the time. Then I did the walls and the roof (I have no idea how the roof got dirty!). After the upstairs was done, the downstairs was even dirtier, so I went and cleaned the floor then the walls. After I'd finished I was soaking and completely covered in "muck", blood and feathers. It was strangely fun though :)
I fed the sheep, bottle fed the lambs and changed the waters. I left just after 4 o'clock.
Louise said there is another girl coming tomorrow to see some lambing.

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