A Tour of the Lambing Shed With Jess (And Her Ball)

Wow, what a week-and-a-bit it has been. On Thursday 23rd February Storm Doris blasted her way across the UK, and the sheep, of course, decided that this was ideal weather for lambing. For the next nine days there were around 15-20 ewes lambing every day and the sheds soon filled up. The busiest morning was last Sunday with 15 ewes lambed before noon! Things only began to settle down yesterday, and since I hadn't had my big camera out in two weeks I simply had to take it out today.

There's always a ball for Jess in the lambing shed now. She nudges it around with her nose and stares at us, forlorn, until someone kicks it for her. Her current one (after the old leather football met an unfortunate end) is an ancient basketball. Dad ran over it with the tractor twice this morning and the tractor was lifted off the ground both times!

Anyway, the sheep. These ewes are all that are left after nine days of chaos. Around thirty of these should lamb within the next month, and then there are eighteen hoggets that should be lambing too, but we've yet to gather them from the field. The lambing is almost finished, and I could have sworn we'd only just started...

The ewe in front here is Eye Patch Lamb, only she's all grown up. I know I shouldn't have favourites, but... I love her.

Curious sheeps.

This one is only young but she is very quiet - she comes over and nibbles your hand. Very strange behaviour for a "wild" sheep. She's very sweet.

Jess keeps an eye on me.

The sheep get much bolder as they spend more time in the shed.

Jess being gorgeous while waiting for me to come out and kick the ball for her already.

Next door to the pen of ewes is the middle section of the shed where the individual families spend time bonding (when we're busy these pens fill up very quickly indeed and sometimes families can only be in here for an hour or two when ideally they'd be there for a few days).

This one was born this morning:

And this is its little sibling.

Mummy making sure all is well.

This chap was born yesterday.

Mum.

We have a set of not-really-triplets - a ewe decided she wanted an extra lamb to join her twins and since we didn't have a mother for the tan-faced one she got to keep it.

Another one born this morning - sleepy with those adorable floppy ears.

The second set of twins from this morning was having some difficulties finding the bar.

Nope. Wrong end.

It's there. It's right there.

Dark spotty botty, light spotty botty. Ah well, at least they're in the right area.

And then we have a pen that was full of expectant mothers last week but is now filling up nicely with families.

Sadly this ewe's huge lamb was stillborn. She called for it all day, and I wasn't surprised in the morning to see that she had found herself a new baby to take care of. Both seem very happy and none-the-wiser.

Lots of Kerry Hills born this week.

Sometimes I can forget just how small lambs are.

A small lamb in a trough.

She's the smallest lamb in the shed in fact.

One of the mothers comfy on a fresh bed.

This lamb was quiet and didn't mind me taking photos of him.

This Kerry Hill came over to see what was going on.

I was sitting beside this lamb.

He's a gorgeous little Texel, a son of Norman's if I've ever seen one.

I lambed him on Friday 3rd March, which happened to be my birthday, so now we're birthday buddies. I even took a selfie with him.

Cute little Kerry Hill baby.

Cute big Kerry Hill baby:

A pair of lambs were resting at the door.

And this lamb I pulled out on 1st March. Doesn't she look wonderful?

Alright, alright, Jess, I'll come and kick your ball now. Honestly.

So demanding.