Today we commenced the start of a new sheep keeping year. The breeding ewes were joined by the ram. Some sorting out was needed first. I had to bring all the ewes into the barn and separate out the three ewes that were unintentionally 'caught' and produced July-born lambs, as well as the three lambs of course.
The remaining ewes (nine of them this year) were led out to the field where they will remain for the rest of this year. It is a slightly smaller field so the ram has potentially less chasing to do.
I then had to separate out one of our two rams who will service the ewes. This will be his first year on the job. Always a trickier operation as the two rams tend to stick close together and are more pushy and stronger compared to the ewes. Some deft manipultaion succeeded in extracting the correct ram who was led off to join the ewes. He will remain with them for exactly 4 weeks so that we know more or less when to expect lambs to arrive and the likely final date: 7th March to 3rd April 2025, give or take a couple of days - sheep usually give birth within two days of the expected date of delivery. The regular gestation period is 145 days.
The three ewes and their Summer born lambs were put into a separate area to continue to put on condition.
Our second ram is being hired out to a Wiltshire Horn sheep keeper in Lavenham, as he was last year with good results.
This is a cycle that is being repeated all over the country and one that has been much the same for centuries.
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| Ewes before being sorted |
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