Selfsufficientish.com

this weekend we have mostly been, fetching a ram. We were very lucky as we had thought that the FMD restrictions had stuffed up our chances of borrowing a ram this year, as we had arranged to have him for 6 weeks prior to him being needed to tup the ewes on the farm he belongs to - the restrictions meant he could not be moved in time, and furthermore they did not want to risk having their ram stuck on a different holding if restrictions came down again., understandably

but - the ram had other ideas and got to his ewes much earlier than they planned, which meant he had done and is free to come on a short holiday to us.

He's a big chap anddid a bit of head butting when we got him into the trailer.. and we were worried that getting him out with no help would be tricky, but after we had pushed the trailer the 100 meters of greenlane to our fields(too narrow for a car) we found that our ewes were up by the gate, and he rushed towards them without so much as a backward glance!

After about 30 seconds of sniffing and turning his lip up (his idea of foreplay) he then tupped 2 of them straight away...

honestly I think we could have returned him the next day job done... but he is here for 6 weeks to be sure.

if all goes well, we hope for lambs at the begining of April. and yes.. I'm scared....

Well I'm sure Ina can give you some sound advice about lambing, fingers crossed it all goes ok and you get some good sturdy lambs- it does sound like he knows what he's up to!

kind thoughts
Deb

No need to get worried yet - and anyway, in most cases they do it without any help....

Main thing you can do before lambing - make sure they don't get too fat. The ewes need to be in good condition, but not too good - otherwise the lambs get too big and can easily get stuck.

That was lesson no 1, the rest follows nearer lambing time!