This time from a lovely old girl who has lambed successfully before. She has quite a lot of grey in her fleece now but she certainly knows how to look after lambs.
I fed haylage to most of them in the big metal feeder then I took handfuls over to the new mums who were not so keen to join the crowd. That didn’t work because the rest of the flock ran over to have a look and decided that the newer piles were the best. Next time I will have to make sure the others don’t notice.
Haylage (pronounced hay- ledge) is half way between hay (yellow and dry) and silage (green and wet). It smells amazing and sometimes has a warm white mould on the outside. What do you feed to your ponies?
The grass is beginning to grow in the paddock so the sheep have enough to nibble and keep interested but the haylage really fills their tummies so we are feeding them two big sacks a day.
We lamb outside in the paddock rather than taking the ewes into a barn. We have made a pen with hurdles (small metal gates that clip together to make a fence) in case anyone is having difficulty bonding with her lamb. If mum is shut in there, she will have a big yellow bucket for her own food and water. So far everyone is managing to keep their own lamb near by despite all the lambs wanting to play together.
