There is a well known saying, 'no pain, no gain' and that will be ringing true in the minds of Milk Link’s 1,600 producers, who are on the brink of reaping just reward for 12 years of loyalty and investment.Dominic Naylor: Delayed lambs cause a bit of a stir
I’M bang in the middle of lambing at the moment so I’ll not tempt fate by telling you how great it’s going. What I will say is what a difference it makes when the sun is shining and you can turn ewes and lambs straight out onto good grazing. It’s definitely paid off lambing 10 days later as the grass is much further on than in previous years.
Interestingly, the ewes started on the official day as opposed to their usual five days early. The delayed arrival of lambs caused a bit of a stir as having set a date last autumn for a ‘lambing Sunday’.
A week before the event and with no lambs, I thought of changing it to ‘farrowing Sunday’. However, using teaser tups means the first day produced 60 lambs and we’ve carried on ever since.
Students have been a great help and there’s an excellent atmosphere in the lambing shed, helped in part by my lambing assistant Alice Petch, great-niece to a former principal Howard Petch. Alice is not only beautiful which is why so many ‘agrics’ are volunteering for lambing duties but from my point of view, she has shepherding abilities way beyond her years.
The ‘lambing Sunday’ went very well with lots of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ as the new arrivals appeared. There was one tricky moment when, having spent some time explaining the scanning colours and the corresponding number of lambs I proceeded to lamb a struggling triplet bearing ewe. The first two lambs came out but the third felt like it was very dead indeed. I
debated leaving it in and cursing John the scanner man but he’s never wrong, which I’d already told them. No, instead I announced that the last lamb was dead and quoted the great Uncle Pete - ‘livestock, deadstock’. The response was as I have come to expect, the children cope far better than some of the adults.
The dry spell has meant we’ve been able to turn some of the milking cows out. It never fails to raise your spirits watching them gallop around the field for the first time. We’ve also drilled the spring barley and the students have worked the maize ground down.
Tomorrow is Ruby’s fifth birthday so I hope lambing eases off for me to have a birthday tea at home. She was watching Adam’s Farm the other day when she saw his gleaming truck she said: “Why can’t you keep your truck clean like him daddy?” Why indeed - I’m off back to the lambing shed.
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