As I thought yesterday, Mat decided to bring in the Scotty ewes carrying singles this afternoon and it is a chock a block again, we will have to keep a tight eye tonight to not get mis-mothering. This is the last of the older Scottish Blackface or Swaledale ewes that have been put to the Bluefaced Leicester Ram (which creates the popular commercial Mule lamb)
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Bluefaced Leceister ewe and newborn finding her first feed
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Unfortunately Bluefaced Leicesters are not considered attractive sheep by us, they are kept and pedigreed to enable us to breed Rams for our own use and for sale(hopefully). They are what we call a 'soft' sheep, likes the best of feed, has a fine wool, thus, thin coat and big ears, so feels the cold. Our other son Neil has these ewes at the Prison Farm, Princetown to lamb, it is their first winter up there and are feeling the difference in temperature living at an higher altitude, these BL's have been living in his lambing shed for some time to keep them happy.
Note the ear tags the ewe has in her ears, 2 are the DEFRA legal requirement tags and the 2 light green ones are the pedigree tags. As of Jan 2011 all sheep have to have a tag with an electronic chip, enabling them to be traced easier by officials, we will see!!
Enough, it is the end of the month and the VAT return needed to be completed before Emily and I visit the lambing shed again
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