READ

Lambing Time – A Typical Day. 

John Cullimore

& feel grateful for being able to stay in a warm bed at night! (Ed's note)

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Lambing Time – A Typical Day. John Cullimore

·           4.00am. My alarm goes off and another day has started. As I am getting up I am already wondering what is going on in the Lambing shed…

Will there be any Ewes in difficulty? How many Lambs will have been born since Jamie went off duty at midnight?

·           4:10am. By now I am already in the Lambing shed, assessing the situation.

Typically there are 3 or 4 Ewes with Lambs, born during the early hours,  this is the only time of day when the sheep are left with no assistance; as there is only Jamie and I.

 (Jamie works 8:00am – 12:00 midnight. He has a break at teatime, while I do 4:00am – 7:00pm; taking it in turns to do lambing, as well as other work that needs doing every day around the farm.)

·           4:15am. I have quickly checked to see if any Ewes are Lambing and in need of assistance. Normally there is at least one, maybe two.

I sort them first and then put all the newly born arrivals into individual pens where they stay for about 1-2 days.

Lambing is a very time-consuming job – you have to ensure that all the newborn lambs receive colostrum (first milk of the mother), there can be up to 30 newborn lambs in one day!

·        6:00am. There are usually 2, or 3, lambs which need a ‘top-up’ feed with a bottle of organic powdered milk, as some Ewes are a little short of milk for the first day or so. I get the early feed done and my wife, Maggie, does any that need it during the day.

·        6:30am. A quick check in the lambing shed (this goes on right throughout the day & night) 

and then off indoors for my first drink & breakfast!

·        7:15am. The next job is to feed all the different groups of ewes with cake – all carefully measured out, as the price has shot up by 70% since last year!

 I also give the cattle their daily feed of cake at the same time, including one group, which are a mile down the road.

·        8:00am. Jamie starts work and helps me with some of the feeding, then we do any bedding down of cattle & sheep that needs doing (straw bedding) – this can take 2, or, 3 hours on some days.

·        9:30am My second drink & breakfast!

·        10:00am I usually have several telephone calls to catch up with that I try to deal with at breakfast time, but the mobile still rings when I am in the middle of lambing a Ewe!

·        10:30am. Jamie carries on with cattle work, straw bedding or feeding hay, while I start numbering all the lambs which are a day old;

     firstly I trim the Ewe’s feet, this is the most convenient time before they go out to grass for the summer, and then I put a number on her lambs so that we know which lambs belong to each Ewe. They are then moved into bigger communal pens of about 12 Ewes where they stay for 4-5 days.

The individual pens then have to be cleaned out and fresh straw put in for the next occupant! We work together with the sheep – except Thursdays, when Jamie does meat deliveries and on Fridays when Maggie and Jamie do Gloucester farmers market. (Click here)

·        1:00pm A short break for lunch! I normally sort out the day’s post at lunch time, as it doesn’t arrive until after midday; this often results in more phone calls / emails (I get Jamie to do emails!)

·        2:00pm. Back to the sheep – a quick check in the lambing shed to see if all is well. In the afternoon we finish any outstanding jobs from the morning and then take some of the oldest lambs (4 or 5 days old) out to the fields where they are put into groups of about 40 Ewes with lambs.

·        4:00pm I have now been at work for 12 hours and am starting to feel a bit jaded… but lambing doesn’t stop! Time to feed all the sheep with cake again – a repeat of the morning feed.

·        5:00pm I now start checking round all of the newest born lambs to make sure they are all sucking properly and have had enough colostrum, flagging up any problems up on the white marker boards, next to the pens, so that Jamie will know which ones to keep an eye on in the evening.

·        6:00pm Teatime! And a chance to talk to Maggie about the events of the day.

·        7:00pm A final check in the lambing shed and a quick chat with Jamie before he takes over lambing duty until midnight!

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