31 March 2017
- This month Richard is re-visiting the sheep barn, explaining how they lamb at Daylesford.
- The sheep have been shorn, scanned and grouped into singles, doubles and triplets. A good tip is to try and move a triplet from a ewe and pair it up with a single from another ewe. This helps to reduce the number of 'pet' lambs you end up with.
- The ewes lamb in larger pens with up to 50 other ewes. As the ewes are not over-fat, very few of them need assistance with lambing. Richard explains that one of the worst things to do is rush in early to help lamb the ewe - leave her for as long as possible to lamb naturally.
- Once born, the lambs are moved to smaller pens with their mothers and here they are castrated and tailed. After 24 hours the lambs and ewes are moved outside onto fresh pasture.
- Cleanliness is essential in an organic system to avoid infection. The smaller pens are cleaned out and disinfected between each mother-lamb pair.
- 'Mothering up' the lambs and ewes is important when turning the lambs out.