Spring is in the air!

Spring at littleseed farm

It may not always feel spring-like here at littleseed Farm at the moment, but there’s one sign of spring that we can always count on. The only thing on our mind here at the farm is lambing! We’ve got lots of ewes who have already lambed who are due to lamb very soon and it’s one of the busiest times on the farm. Long hours and sleepless nights are aplenty, and the farm team are on standby day and night. We’ll be busy in the kitchen supplying them with plenty of tea and homemade cake to keep them going

The littleseed flock

Lots of the ewes will deliver their lambs out in the field without the support of the team, but some ewes, especially those first-time mums, will have a close eye kept on them and will be brought into our lambing shed to give birth with the team on hand to help out. Most first-time mum’s will generally give birth to one lamb, and occasionally twins. But for any ewe, four lambs are the most we will ever usually see any them produce. It really does differ and can depend on the breed of the sheep.

Once the lamb is born, it’s our job to get it on its feet and get it to latch to its mum’s teat to get the first milk which is full of much needed antibodies and nutrition. If latching on doesn’t happen in the first few hours, this milk will be collected from the mother and fed by hand to the lamb.

It doesn’t always go plan once the lambs are born. Not all ewes and lambs will survive no matter how good the care. We’ll pair up orphan lambs with other ewes, and also do this when an ewe can’t cope after a multiple birth. We use a few different ways to make this easier for the bonding, either using birthing fluid from a new-born lamb and transferring it to an adoptive lamb. Another way of helping an adoption when a lamb is born dead, is taking the skin from the dead lamb and tying it to the orphan so the adoptive mum will recognise the scent and bond with it as her own.

We’ll keep a close on the ewes and her lambs and once the lambs are feeding well they can go out into the field where the ewes will graze on grass which helps with milk production to feed the lambs. The ewes will have a good few months to get back into top condition ready to get pregnant, and then it’s time to start the process all over again! And time for us to rest too!