Thursday 14 December 2006

Tup Tastic Talent!

No this is not a new wheeze by the rams to attract the 'ladies' but the remains of the crayon held in the 'raddle' used to identify which of the ewes have been mated. We change the colour every week so that we know roughly when each ewe will lamb. The Rams have just finished this years mating and are now off for a well earned rest! There are 20 rams who should have serviced about 1000 ewes, that's 50 each! These ewes will start lambing in April.

Some of the boys saw action in September mating for the early ewe flock of 150 ewes. These were scanned last week, the first time we have scanned our ewes. Of the 150, 15 didn't mate, 10 mated and then aborted, (we will blood samples these to find out why) 36 will have singles, 83 will have twins and 6 will have triplets! Busy times in February for Todd and me. The ewes will be feeding on silage (conserved grass) and turnips on Bredon Hill between now and just before they are ready to lamb. The triplets and the twins will be housed so that we can feed them a bit more, but the singles will stay out until the very last minute.

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