Farmer Jim’s Lambing Experience

Hey everyone, Farmer Jim here and I am going to talk to you about my lambing experience!

I recently had the opportunity to go and work with a local couple, Tony and Val, who were in the midst of lambing and as I am always wanting to expand my skills, I jumped at the chance to be involved. I was with them for a full week, and I learnt lots of new skills that I am excited to tell you about.

Day 1 – I was that excited to get started that I arrived 10minutes early! I spent the majority of the day learning the routine of the sheep and how things are done but there had been 3 lambs born overnight which needed to be separated into bonding pens and they have to be ‘dipped and squirted’ which means they need to have their umbilical cords dipped in iodine to prevent infection and they are given a squirt of antibiotic to give them a good start to life. I was introduced to the herd of Hereford cows that the couple also own, and I also helped to hay and feed them as well.

Day 2 – We had an early start today as we were taking a trip to Melton Market! After we had fed and sorted the sheep out, we then spent the majority of the day checking out the sheep sales and I learnt about the process of how you would sell or buy at the market. The price of the sheep was fairly high this day and the top price per herd of sheep reached £220 which is amazing! That evening, I was trusted with my first night check. When I returned to check to sheep I found a ewe in labour, after watching the ewe for a little while I got concerned that things weren’t progressing so I got on the phone and called for back-up. I helped to deliver my first lamb, the lamb was in the wrong position with one leg back. but it was also a very big lamb too!

Day 3 – This day was a fairly slow day with ewes given birth, but I did manage to help deliver another lamb and I also had to hold an ewe for her lambs to drink, as she hadn’t taken to her lambs as well as we would like, so she needed the encouragement to stand still. I also learnt how to drive a tractor, which was definitely my highlight for the day as I have always wanted to have a go at driving one. We also did a lot more with the cows today and I helped to put down a big bale of straw in their shed which they loved, and I also spotted the newest arrival being a new bull calf.

Day 4 – My first solo day! I was trusted in looking after all the ewes and lambs on my own for the morning and of course, it was the busiest day for lambs. I turned up to 2 sets of twins, 1 set of triplets and a single lamb that had been born overnight. So, I had to construct bonding pens and put all the ewes with the right lambs in the pens, making sure every lamb had been ‘dipped and squirted’ and also completing the morning routine of feeding, watering, and haying all the sheep. I also had a go at tube feeding some lambs, as we wanted to make sure that the triplets that had been born all had colostrum, so we tube fed each of them to make sure. It was such a busy day, but I definitely felt the most accomplished!

Day 5 – Today was the day we were tail docking, castrating and spray marking a good chunk of the lambs to be able to move them to the nursery pen. So we had to go from pen to pen, making sure that we were catching each lamb, placing a band around the base of the tail to dock their tails. We do this to prevent the lamb getting fly strike, and we also castrated all the ram lambs using the same method. We then used a stock marker to mark each lamb with a number that correlates to mum.

Day 6 – Today we ear tagged all the older lambs in the nursery pen in preparation for them to hopefully go out into the fields, as soon as the weather becomes more stable and not as wet. To ear tag we had to make sure that we were double checking the records, to ensure we were tagging them in the right order, and we did them all one at a time to be correct. After we had completed the ear tagging, we took a drive to check out all the fields that would hopefully be housing lambs to make sure that the land and fencing was suitable for them and that we knew where we needed to put the electric fence to keep them in the field and safe.

This whole experience was brilliant, and I learnt so much about sheep and lambs, and being able to get hands on with the ewes was amazing. I would happily do this again given the chance and I owe a huge thank you to Tony and Val that allowed me to have this opportunity and to take the time to teach me.

Farmer Jim