From my previous posts you will know how much I love my three lovely Southdown sheep Petal, Blossom and renamed Flower.
Flower, Petal and Blossom
The
last few months have been a joy looking after them. They have at times been a bit
cheeky managing to walk through the sheep netting which we don’t always put
electricity to it, as we have stock fencing around the perimeter of the field. The netting is handy to just keep them moving onto fresh grass within the field
and to protect newly planted fruit trees and to stop them wandering into the
dew pond, which because of the wet weather can fill up and get muddy very
quickly. We decided to move them into the old orchard on Saturday morning to keep the grass down as
it is quite lush now and with all the daffodils out it looked really idyllic.
Anyway I got up early on Monday gave them some of their favourite sheep nuts
and fed the hens and geese in the orchard, went inside to make my hubby's breakfast. It was such a lovely morning we decided
to have our coffee and croissant outside and watch the sheep and hens in the
orchard. Then Oh dear something clearly wasn’t ok with Flower, she was bleating
and looking very uncomfortable with mucus coming away from her rear end. My
hubby and I are still very much novice shepherds with lots to learn. Petal, Blossom and Flower which are only
shearlings are not due to go with the ram until next November, so we thought we had plenty of time to study and learn about lambing. Since they arrived last October they have never
been near a ram, but quite clearly Flower had come to us with a liaison with some
handsome ram that found her irresistible, as 20 minutes later out popped a very tiny very beautiful lamb which we have called Cherry.
I don’t know
who was more shocked Flower or us. It was a bit touch and go as I suppose she is
a very young mum and although attentive we thought she was a bit reluctant to feed her lamb. But we have made
a maternity ward for her with lots of fresh hay and treats and have also given
her the option of using the polytunnel if it rains.
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Flower in the labour ward
Now I was panicking is that it or is there 2 more or maybe shes dead. |
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| After a wash and brush up water and sheep nuts |
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| Baby Cherry enjoying the Orchard and Sunshine |
Cherry is still very weak but I hope she will be ok she is so pretty and has the most delicate bleat. It has all been very unexpected but we coped and hopeful she will be a happy fine ewe, for our new flock we can keep. She is very special to us being our first lamb and such a surprise. Gosh I feel so attached to her it would have been upsetting to have had to part from a baby ram.
Well I'm off to read up on tail docking and ear tagging, don't know whether I will be able to watch this.
