We have 24 sheep on the farm, we only keep them to eat of the grass that the horses leave, and of course their droppings fertilise the fields and our holiday visitors and their children love to see them and their lambs.
They are free range, touch wood they don’t stray to far, although they do go missing a times, so you need to count them at least once a day, although you tend to do a count every time you see them. When they are all go missing you know that they are normally not in any trouble, When one disappears you have to start worrying, they may be caught up in the bramble, the sheep with horns(our ones with horns are Portlands) may even have their horns caught up in wire, being sheep anything that can go wrong, will.
Doing a count early this afternoon we were one ewe down to 23 sheep, they were in a field close to the Farmhouse. It was one of the Portlansds that was missing, anything that you are doing has to stop so that you can look for it. You start to look in the hedges and all around the fields.
I had been looking for a good hour and a half and was starting to think the worse, but decided to go up to the far end of the farm, a good way from where the other sheep were grazing, further than I really thought she would have been, but it was worth a chance, then I heard a faint bleat, so faint that it may have come from a field on another farm, that is on the other side of the wood. I went through a gap in the hedge that leads into the wood to look into the field, and then to make my way back home through the wood still searching, when I caught a glimpse of white, there she was. I made my way up the bank, she was laying down and would normally have run off when she saw me, on reaching her I realised why she had not, she was licking a new born lamb, behind her was a born lamb still in the birth sack looking very dead. After removing the sack it was still lifeless, but you should never give up with lambs, after clearing its mouth I shook it, swung it, and slapped it and after a few minutes it stirred, shook itself and open its eyes, I laid it in front of the ewe so that they could bond. That lamb was lucky, they cant get oxygen whilst in the sack and would have only a minute or so left before dying
On returning home we took the dogs for a walk, giving the ewe the time she needed with the lambs and returned later to take the ewe and lambs back home on the quad and trailer, you may have seen it on the webcams. They are in one of the stables now, if the weather is OK tomorrow they will be let into the fields with the other sheep. The ewe tends to hide them for a day or two. As soon as they are about, we will put them on the webcams.