Counting Summer’s lambs
Dogs are away up the hill and round the flock of Club and Radnor ewes grazing in the misty-May morning. From our upland farm in the ‘Marchlands’ between Breconshire and Herefordshire, we look down to the Wye running through the valley below, and across to the Black Mountains standing gaunt and bleak on the skyline. Behind us, on this side of the valley, stands the common land of the gently sloping Begwyn Hills.
The flock seems reluctant to move this morning, a mature ewe outfaces the dogs in her stubborn refusal to budge until both lambs are obediently by her side. It’s hard to believe how recently these lambs were damp little bundles huddling together miserably through wind and rain.These same lambs are now grown into sturdy independent creatures who rush around in gangs, oblivious to the warning cries of their dams. Even when the whole flock is moving slowly downhill, individuals constantly go back to retrieve a wayward offspring from ditch or hedgerow. It takes nearly two hours to get down to the yard, but at last we have them penned.
So, what sort of harvest shall we have this year? For many upland farms, the crop of fat lambs sent early to market is the most important cash crop of the year. Under the terms of the ‘sheep-meat’ regime from Brussels, lambs sold at auction now have a guaranteed minimum price. This puts stability into the market and lambs are a vital part of our income.
Of course the whole lambing cycle began last Autumn as days shortened between September and October and ewes became fertile. Several days spent checking and sorting ewes – and heavy work it is too. Each ewe in turn is held, neatly flipped over and sat upright like a begging dog; once in this position her struggles magically cease and she sinks into a relaxed stupor against the handler’s knee. We gently check teeth, udder and feet before turning her round for a tail trim ( important to avoid grubs). This is followed by a swim across the sheep-dip (to protect against sheep-scab) and she rejoins her mates. I’m not surprised ewes generally run away from humans, contact with us is usually not pleasant.
Finally rams are brought in from their separate paddock for their check-up. The senior rams are a stately pair of black-faced Suffolks called Arthur and Albert, and they were joined earlier in the summer by a pair of yearling tups. All four have spent long hot days lying together in a companionable group; it’s important to let them sort out a pecking order amongst themselves before they meet the ewes. Once in with the ladies they will then get straight on with the important work, not waste energy fighting each other.
So, one chilly October morning, the tups finally got turned out with the ewes – and for the next few weeks Nature took her course.
By year ending, the ewes began to look a bit plump, and January’s blizzards gave us anxious times. If the ewes go short of food at critical times then they begin to re-absorb the foetus. This is a good way of conserving resources for the ewe, much less wasteful than aborting, however, it means a serious drop in eventual lamb numbers.
Beginning of February found mothers-to-be waddling around fields close by the farmhouse looking fat and contented, and by the end of that month began dropping their lambs. Older, more experienced, mothers chose their maternity couches with care and lambed in the protective lee of a holly hedge or on the sheltered bank of the dingle. Others, less experienced, lambed where the turf was wet, and their offspring died of exposure shortly after emerging into the World. Nature is kind to such new-borns; if too weak to survive they seem to drift painlessly into a stupor and fall unconscious before peacefully breathing their last. Most lambs though have a strong survival instinct and, as long as they have a tummy full of warm colostrum, can tuck themselves under their dams and survive the most appalling conditions. It has been estimated that the annual loss of new-
born lambs on British farms is about 4,000,000 which costs out at a staggering £100,000,000. It’s not surprising that richer farmers are building sheep-housing to bring lambing indoors.
Lambing time? That’s when the Shepherdess really comes into her own. She’s got one overwhelming advantage over (most) Shepherds. Her hand! Most women have a hand much narrower across the knuckles than most men. So when a ewe is having problems giving birth to twins or triplets, the shepherdess can usually slip her hand in more easily and sort out the tangle of limbs in utero. Even on farms where the man mainly cares for the sheep, he often calls on the wife to sort out a difficult lambing.
And after all that, eventually Winter will yield its bitter grip and allow Spring to come in – much later here than in the lowlands (one year we lost several ewes in a blizzard in the last week of April, and a heifer in snow on May the first). Before loosing the flock out onto common land in April, each lamb gets dosed against fluke and lung-worms. Tails are trimmed and cleaned so summer flies have nowhere to lay eggs – for these can develop into vicious grubs which bore into a sheep’s flesh and eat it alive. Finally, a large black O is painted on each little rump – the farm identification logo – before the lamb is released to scamper back to mum for a comforting suckle of warm milk.
Spring gives way to early Summer and we sit back, watching curlews and plovers nesting and letting lambs play and grow. Well, I say ‘sit back’ – there’s a little matter of silaging and hay-harvest.
Through June and July, lambs go off in bunches to Hay-on-Wye or Talgarth markets, until the day comes when only those that we will keep as replacement breeding stock and ‘hogs’ that will go to Autumn markets, remain. Much of our grassland is still covered with silage and hay crops – we aim to mow when the grass blades are still young and soft, before they have fully headed. The cut and wilted crop is then packed down tightly under black polythene clamps, and in these anaerobic conditions, matures into silage. The permanent pastures of the Oak Field and Banky Field, where a mixed population of rye grasses, cocksfoot, meadow fescues and Timothy flourish, we’ll leave to grow a few weeks longer before cutting for hay. Walking quietly across the old turf on the Banky field today I came upon the shallow scrape of a nest, set in the hollow of an old hoof print and half covered by overhanging dried mud. Simply a few bent straw shafts surrounding a clutch of four pale biscuit-coloured eggs mottled with a darker brown staining. I used to worry about cattle treading on lapwing nests when they graze, but for all the cow’s apparent clumsiness they manage to walk delicately round them.
However, although eggs are laid from the end of March onwards, the nests are commonly robbed by foes such as carrion crows, so it’s often as late as July before we see this year’s broods wheeling and somersaulting above the meadowland. Their haunting cry is truly our sound of Summer come once more.
In the market, a couple of farmers were leaning on a gate and putting the World to rights. They spotted a lively group of ram lambs being unloaded from a trailer.
“Them be that lively I reckons them be ‘arf shep and ‘arf goat.”
“Aye, them’ll be that tough to eat you’ll be hard put to stick ya fork in their gravy.”
And soon the days will be shortening to September, and the whole cycle will turn around once more.
