A Farmer's Diary

by Sally Urwin

  Newborn lambs are the epitome of cuteness. Abby has knobbly knees, fuzzy legs and a compact little body with close-curled white wool. Our Texel/Mule cross lambs always seem to have huge ears that stick out sideways to their heads. Some of them have lots of wrinkly skin, as if they’re wearing a jumper that’s too big. Eventually they ‘grow into’ this skin and it all smooths out. Some have black splotches on their faces and legs, but Abby is pure white, with very long coal-black eyelashes and a high forehead crowned with a tuft of downy wool. She blarts for her mother with a high-pitched baa, and the hogg rushes over and starts cleaning her from nose to tail with her big, rough tongue.

  Friday 6th April

  Lambing has now properly kicked off. All goes well until after lunch, when I need to help a ewe give birth to her second lamb. She’s already had a nice, healthy single, but the second lamb is stuck. There were a pair of lamb hooves just poking out and she was straining and pushing, but nothing else was happening.

  It’s a weird feeling reaching inside a sheep. Sometimes I accidentally stick my finger into the unborn lamb’s mouth and feel a row of tiny sharp teeth and a flickering tongue or touch a real jumble of legs and need to sort out which legs belong to which body and whether they’re at the front or the back. Sometimes when you catch hold of a lamb’s feet inside the ewe the baby jerks them back out of your fingers. It’s a lovely feeling as you know it’s alive and just minutes away from being born.

  I catch hold of the front two legs and gently pull alternately on each one, so that the lamb starts to slide out of the birth canal. I see a tiny pair of nostrils and stretch each front leg so that they straighten out, and smoothly tug downwards. The lamb slides out of the ewe and flops onto the straw with a gush of amniotic fluid. The baby must have been caught on the shoulders.

  I pull all the birth sac away from the baby’s nostrils and eyes and watch it shake its head, with tiny ears flapping. All healthy lambs seem to do this when they’re first born. The baby is wet and steaming in the cold air. I pick him up and bring him around to the ewe’s face, and she immediately starts licking and ‘chuckling’ at him. It’s a comforting sound that all new sheep mothers make and I love hearing it.

  The ewe is marked as carrying triplets, so I have another feel around inside to see if there are any more babies. I can just touch one hoof as the baby is lying deep down inside the ewe, so decide to leave her to lamb herself. I move them all into a pen, and thirty minutes later there’s a smug-looking ewe and a third lamb lying on the straw. Clever girl. She’s cleaned them all up and they are beginning to stand on wobbly legs. Time for a cup of tea from the urn.

  I’m getting more and more experienced at telling when a ewe is in labour. Sometimes the signs are obvious. A labouring mother will paw at the straw and get up and down, moving around in discomfort. You can see them stargazing, with their noses pointed straight up into the air, and all of them start to strain and push when the contractions hit. Some ewes lick and chew or grind their teeth. Then you should see a ‘water bag’, the birth sac, filled with amniotic fluid hanging down from the ewe’s vulva. Then two little feet sticking straight out and maybe a nose. After about thirty minutes the lamb should be hitting the straw, and the ewe, maybe after a short rest, should start cleaning and licking and chuckling to her baby.

  The kids are in full helping mode. They’re mucking out pens, filling water buckets, feeding sheep and moving mothers and their lambs into different pens. The pace of lambing is picking up. We’re going into the busiest period, when all the flock seem to want to lamb at the same time.

  The weather is still filthy, hissing down with rain and freezing cold. It’ll become a problem when we need to start moving ewes and lambs outside to make more room in the lambing pens for new mothers.

  Saturday 7th April

  Today was a typical lambing day.

  Steve checks the lambing sheds at 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. (and usually lambs a few as well at that time of night). He’s then up at 2 a.m. to do the middle-of-the-night ‘look round’, when hopefully everything is nice and quiet.

  I get up blearily at 5 a.m. and stagger out to the lambing shed in my pyjama bottoms and no bra, with my boobs stuffed into my warmest jacket. I stumble around the pens praying to the Goddess of Lambing that nothing has started in labour. I can’t help thinking that Steve’s 2 a.m. morning check disturbs them all, as when I arrive there are usually a few babies to greet me.

  I go back to the house to get dressed properly and drink my first cup of tea. I’m basically surviving on tea, Diet Coke and Mars bars. I get the kids out of bed, dressed and fed and leave them to play or in front of the TV.

  I do most of the day work to give Steve a chance to catch up on sleep. Although he’s usually too anxious about the lambing to relax, so tends to give me a hand until at least the middle of the afternoon.

  Then it’s quickly back into the shed to be greeted by at least one pair of newborn lambs, which need to be coaxed into a pen with their mother.

  I give the ewes their morning feed and everyone a clean bucket of water. While I’m doing this I’m checking each new mother for problems, splashing out iodine on umbilical cords, and keeping an eye on any off-colour lambs. Then off to check the pet lambs and feed them all a bottle of milk. Fred still needs a bit of help to drink from the bottle, so I sit in the straw and give him another lesson, trying to think patient thoughts.

  Once everyone has finished their breakfast Steve does the rounds of the sheep outside. He buzzes about on the quad bike, clutching the heated handlebars as it’s freezing (and raining) out there.

  Another quick cup of tea and it’s back to the shed to start moving healthy mothers and babies into their nursery paddock, and we both start mucking out pens. They need to be cleaned down to the concrete to avoid infection, so after removing all the dirty straw I chuck a disinfectant powder on the bare floor and wait for it to dry.

  Time for another cup of tea. Is it my third or fourth? Not sure.

  I’m back out again to see a ewe in labour. This time it’s triplets, and she manages well until the third lamb. It’s huge and gets stuck at the shoulders, so Steve gives her a hand while I lie across her neck to keep her still. Once all is born it’s into a clean pen with more iodine and an injection of antibiotics for the ewe, as she’s a bit sore after her ordeal. I rig up a heat lamp to give the lambs (who are looking rather dazed) a bit of warmth.

  And then more feeding and watering, and I bed up the clean pens ready for the afternoon push. More checking of pet lambs, and lots of moving about of lambs to the nursery shed, and then into the paddocks. Some new lambs need to be castrated with tiny rubber rings, and one of the newest pet lambs needs to be taught how to suckle.

  It’s still chucking it down, and we’re running out of space for new mothers and babies, as we can’t turn out the slightly older ewes and lambs into the icy rain. They’d freeze to death. So every spare inch of shed space is jammed full of sheep as we try desperately to keep them all warm.

  It just goes on and on and on. I barely see the children, unless they come out to help. Mum is an absolute godsend, and keeps a steady stream of hot dinners, lunches and cups of tea on the go.

  Last check for me is 9 p.m. Praying that no ewe has decided to lamb, I scan the shed and see a sheep at the back in the familiar stargazing position. Bugger. I can see a dark bag of liquid hanging from her hindquarters, so I switch on my tea urn and settle down to wait. After around half an hour and a lot of straining and groaning she pushes out a nice, big single. I swoop into the straw, pick him up by his front feet and walk backwards into a clean pen. The mother, with afterbirth slithering behind her, totters after and immediately starts her mothering chuckle, while carefully licking her lamb. I slosh iodine on the baby’s umbilical stump and check everyone else.

  Back at home I peel off waterproof trousers and poo-caked boots. Mum wrinkles her nose at the smell. Every pair of trousers or coat in the hall is permeated by the strong smell of lanolin and wet wool. I
flop down into the chair and drink another cup of tea. Bed. Lucy waves vaguely from her bedroom as, zombie-like, I slide into bed, and fall almost instantly asleep.

  Monday 9th April

  The kids are now off school. Lucy throws herself into helping. She’s old enough now to fetch buckets, bed up pens and feed ewes, and she’s a great help with the pet lambs. I often find her snuggled into the straw under the heat lamp, covered in a snoring pile of different-sized lambs. She also has the most patience in teaching dim lambs how to suck on the machine.

  Ben is different. He’s still only little, and his favourite thing to do is ride his bike round and round the brewery car park and make up long, complicated stories about imaginary ninjas.

  I love them both so much and it’s difficult over the Easter holidays, as they see their friends going on holiday or enjoying exciting days out, while we’re all stuck at home, tied to the farm.

  ‘It’s all relative,’ says Steve that evening. ‘Some kids would kill for the freedom of a farm, and the chance to look after all the animals.’ I can see that, but I also want to make sure that they get the opportunity to try other things, and to see all the stuff their friends get to see.

  On the other hand, the kids are discovering the benefits of having my parents living with us for a bit.

  ‘All my clothes are flat!’ exclaims Ben one morning, when he looks in his wardrobe. I hate ironing and never do it, but Granny irons everything, including dishtowels and socks.

  ‘They’re not flat,’ says Lucy witheringly. ‘It’s just that Granny has ironed our clothes cos Mum won’t do it.’

  Grandad takes the children out on adventures and bike rides, and down to the beach for fish and chips.

  ‘You’ll have to last forever,’ I say to them over beef stew that evening. ‘I need you both lots, and so do the kids.’

  ‘Well I don’t exactly plan to pop my clogs just yet,’ says Dad huffily. Mum gives another helping of stew to Steve, who winks at me through a mouthful of home-cooked food. He is also getting used to the joys of regular meals and ironed clothes.

  Tuesday 10th April

  My greatest horror is having to lamb either Bertha or Hatty myself. They’re now the size and width of coffee tables. It’ll be OK if I can lure them into a pen, as I could at least then pin them against the fence and reach round to help them lamb if need be.

  I’ve always been taught that the proper way to move a ewe and her lamb into a pen is to pick up the slimy baby by its front legs, make a squeaky ‘meep-meep’ lamb noise in the style of the cartoon Roadrunner and wait for the mother to follow you. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t.

  Today I catch a ewe that needs a hand, but she has such a long body, and my arms are so short, that I can’t pin her against the wall and reach round to her back end to pull out the lamb. I have to manoeuvre her into a pen, almost slipping a disc in the process, and then wedge her into one corner with my knee to hoick out the lamb. I’m sweaty, bright red and covered in goopy amniotic fluid.

  I wish I was a bit taller. It would make lambing so much easier. ‘It’s not your height, pet,’ says Steve, ‘it’s because your arms are freakishly short.’

  Thursday 12th April

  We’re now in the thick of it. I have mothers and lambs in pens everywhere. The rain is still falling and we’re running out of space to put everyone. I haven’t eaten a hot meal for a few days, and I’m managing on about three hours of sleep. Steve has cut his thumb slicing open a straw bale with a rusty knife. I don’t think I’ve brushed my hair since Monday.

  We have six pet lambs so far, including Fred and Fuzzy. Poor Fuzzy. His mum didn’t want him and refused to let him suckle, so we took him off her and made him into a pet lamb.

  He refuses (or doesn’t understand how) to suck on the bottle, he’s got a bit of scour (diarrhoea) and he smells very bad. With his lack of personal hygiene, and being a bit underweight, he’s a sad specimen.

  Steve hasn’t got a lot of patience with pet lambs. He gives them a couple of tries on the bottle, and will stomach-tube them milk for a few days, but he doesn’t have time to sit with them to coax them to suck on a teat.

  Therefore, every few hours, I sit with Fuzzy (and his smell) in the pet lamb pen and try to persuade him to drink. He won’t open his mouth, so I carefully prise his teeth apart and gently push in the teat of the milk bottle. He chews it and the milk spurts out the side of his mouth, down his chest (making him even more stinky), but some does go down his throat.

  Today he even manages to suck about 50 ml of warm milk himself, but then loses the knack and starts to chew and lick rather than suck. If you gently press on his nose, it sometimes makes him remember the sucking ‘feeling’ on a bottle. Also, scratching him just above his tail can help to encourage his tail to wiggle and him to suck. Although I still get covered in milk, and Fuzzy seems confused. He has the hunched back and baggy skin of a poorly lamb, and he shakes and shivers, even when he’s lying under the heat lamp. I’m tempted to knit him a jumper …

  He just wants his mum – who is having a high old time out in the paddock with her single preferred offspring.

  Saturday 14th April

  Along with Fred and Fuzzy we now have nine pet lambs. Mornings are a blur of bottle-washing plus measuring and mixing out lamb milk. It’s starting to take up too much of our time, so today we’ve decided to break out the Titty Machine.

  That’s not it’s actual name. It’s called the Milk Maid 2000 and it was bought by Steve’s parents about twenty years ago. It cost a fortune in its day, and is marvellous, but also very temperamental and has to be treated with caution and respect.

  The Titty Machine is the size and shape of a fridge and holds a hopper of milk powder, which is mixed automatically with water and passed through a heater to produce a flow of tepid milk through two thin lines, which can be attached to a pair of rubber teats.

  It needs to be thoroughly cleaned every day to avoid the lambs getting an infection and coming down with scour. Lambs aren’t usually the brightest buttons, and a lot of them need one-to-one training on how to suck on the machine. Some like to chew on the teats, or in Fuzzy’s case, suck on the screws that hold them firmly onto the side of the pen. Otherwise, all they really want is warmth from the heat lamps, company, warm milk and space to bounce in-between feeds.

  We haul the Titty Machine out from under a load of pallets and set it up next to the lamb pen. It needs a thorough clean, so we march backwards and forwards with buckets of hot water and Fairy liquid until everything is clean and sparkling. Connecting it up to the power supply is always a tense moment. Thank god, this time it hums into life, and Steve and I take turns squatting in the pen with each lamb, showing it where the teats are, and how to suck them. Fuzzy needs a lot of persuading.

  But that’s a good job done, as it means I don’t need to wash endless bottles morning and evening. Especially as my hands are beginning to develop deep cracks and fissures and I’m slathering on gallons of E45.

  Monday 16th April

  I’m covered in iodine stains, have unidentified goopy bits hanging off my sleeves and am wearing the usual terrible selection of hairy coats and hats to keep warm. Sometimes two coats at once, so I look as wide as I am tall. The weather is unspeakable. Icy sleet whips past me when I open the lambing shed doors, and the ground is ankle-deep in mud.

  Today we’ve had a set of quadruplets. This is quite unusual, only the second set of quadruplets that I’ve seen in my ten years on High House Farm. They’re all a good size, and nice and chunky, with black noses and speckled faces.

  They’re very cute and I’m very excited. I call the kids over to see.

  ‘Great,’ says Ben, munching on a packet of salt-and-vinegar crisps. He’s not very enthusiastic about lambing, as he’s seen it all before, and I’ve taken him away from his favourite TV programme (Teen Titans Go!). He sits on the quad bike peering into the lambing shed. Lucy is more animated, and helps me iodine all the lambs while giving them
all a stroke. I take a few photos of the quadruplets and send them to my friends on Facebook and Twitter.

  This afternoon we have a case of ringwomb.

  I investigate inside the ewe and can feel a cervix that is only open one or two centimetres. The sac full of amniotic fluid is bulging through the tiny gap, and as I move a finger into the cervix entrance it bursts, gushing fluid over my hand, arm and front of my jacket. Lucy leans all her weight onto the sheep’s neck to keep her still, and I kneel behind her and keep my fingers slowly massaging and stretching the cervix entrance.

  After around twenty minutes I manage to get the nose and one hoof out of the cervix. I can’t find the other hoof inside the womb, no matter how carefully I follow the leg back from the shoulder. It must be tucked right down beside the body. I feel the lamb’s tongue flick over my fingers as I painstakingly wrap one forefinger round the tiny foot and pull. If I can’t find the other front foot, I’m going to have to try and pull the baby out with one leg. The ewe has been labouring now for over an hour, and she’s tiring.

  I’m kneeling behind her, so I sit back on my haunches and start to tug. The sheep makes some loud groaning noises, and I hate to hear it, but I daren’t wait. I put all my weight into it, and thankfully the baby starts to slide forward. I can now hook two fingers round its front leg and keep pulling out and down until the cervix gives and the lamb slides out.

  The baby isn’t breathing, so I strip off the birth sac and quickly rub down the lamb’s face, squeezing all the gunk out of its nose and mouth. I grab a big handful of straw and furiously rub at its chest and stomach, mimicking what a mother sheep would do with her rough tongue. There’s still no sign of a breath, so picking up a long piece of straw, I try gently tickling the lamb’s nostrils to see if I can make it sneeze.