Today at the farm began with castration of the young male lambs. This is done by attaching a rubber castration ring to the scrotum, ensuring that both testicles are in the area that will drop off. If one testicle remains the young lamb will be able to mate and cause problems, therefore it is essential that this is carried out carefully to ensure that it is performed effectively.
There are a few important reasons to castrate lambs. These include ensuring that they are not aggressive towards other lambs as they grow and mature, so that they grow more quickly and so that the meat quality is greater. This is due to the fact that there will be less testosterone interfering.
Tail docking is carried out in the same way, with the ring placed approximately 2/3 of the way up the tail. This helps to prevent the tail from being covered in faeces, which could have the potential to cause infection.

The lambs at this point were also given a live vaccine against Orf. This swells up the mouth and surrounding area in the summer, and prevents the lamb from eating, which can effectively result in death. Therefore I scratched the vaccine onto the lamb’s armpit, ensuring that the skin was just broken. This gives them the disease under their armpit, but allows the lamb to build up immunity against the disease, so that it will not contract the disease in the summer.

Before the ewes were taken back out into the field, I gave them a wormer. This is administered by squirting two 25ml amounts into the ewe’s mouth. This kills any worms that may be in the gut, and they pass out with the faeces.

Today I realised the importance of maintaining clean conditions within the small holding pens and indeed in the barn itself. If blood and fluid from a ewe, which is infected with a particular disease or ailment comes into contact with another ewe then there is the distinct chance of the spread of infection. We therefore remove any fluids, and regularly completely muck out the pens, ensuring that the straw and hay removed is responsibly burnt. The pen is then sprinkled with a cupful of disinfectant, making sure that the risk of the spread of infection is kept as low as is reasonably achievable.

After the birth of a lamb, one of the jobs that I had to perform was taking a bottle of iodine, and placing the end of the umbilical cord into the bottle, tipping the bottle back, so that the entire umbilical cord and the area surrounding it was covered, this is essential to prevent any naval infections which may become a problem if this was not performed.
Also, one squirt of Spectam Scour Halt is given to each lamb, which is administered orally. This is for the prevention of bacterial neonatal disease (Watery mouth disease) in lambs at risk of colostrum deprivation.

Today I was able to deliver 6 lambs. One in particular, a single, was extremely large, and required, large amounts of lubricant to allow the front legs and head to have enough leverage for the lamb to become free of the uterus.
Since this was only a single, a free knocked off lamb was rubbed on, as the ewe had plenty of milk. To do this it is important to ensure that the lamb is covered completely in the scent of the other lamb, so that the ewe will not reject it and recognise it as its own. A rubbed on lamb must be kept an eye on to ensure that the mother does not knock it off. So regular checks must be carried out, to ensure that the lamb is getting enough milk.

Another delivery that I dealt with today was a ewe that appeared to be delivering normally, however on an internal inspection, although two legs could be felt, there appeared to be no head! However on a second inspection the head had been turned round completely over the lambs shoulder, so it was important, that before the legs were pulled any further that the lamb was pushed back, so that the head could be turned into its normal frontal position and pulled forward along with the front feet. This allowed the delivery to take place normally without any further complications.
However, one of the most important things that I have learnt whilst lambing recently is that patience is one of the most important qualities- not rushing the ewes is very important and will only succeed in worrying them.