This year I lambed at Far Highfield Farm near Lancaster in England. The farm is owned by the Morphets and I met them last August when I did my dairy EMS just down the road. Its a medium sized farm with around 600 sheep and a few beef cattle. I had my own room in the farmhouse with quite a comfy bed. The house was heated with a Rayburn stove which also heated the hot water and was used a bit for cooking. If I wanted toast in the morning, I made it over the hot coals of the stove - how cool! Outside, Mrs. Morphet had hundreds of flower bulbs planted and the daffodils and hyacinths were all in bloom while I was there.
The ewes due to lamb were in three building and once they lambed we moved them into 'mothering up' pens to give them time to bond with their lambs. When the lambs were strong enough, they were taken out to pastures and checked daily. Despite a battle with watery mouth (e coli) in the lambs, most of the ewes ended up with twins. We had several quadruplets and tons of triplets, which almost made up for the lambs who died and the ewes with single lambs. As far as I can remember, on our busiest day we had almost 50 ewes lamb and had well over a hundred lambs in the barns at any one time.
Since Mr. Morphet liked working the night shift, I never had to do it this year. I was usually up and out to the barn by 7am and we finished up around 10pm. Not that it was all work! We had plenty of tea breaks, dinner (lunch), and tea (dinner) to keep us fueled up. Richard, Mr. Morphet's son, and I usually had it out for the biggest pieces of cake. Between the two of us, chocolate didn't stay in the house very long!
A Sad Tale
During my first few days on the farm, a very small lamb was born. His front legs were a bit misshapen, and his size was against him, but he a such a will to live. I named him Little One. He was crazy about the bottle and when I fed him he would drink till he couldn't hold another drop! He new exactly where that milk came from and if he heard me talking in the barn he would get all excited. Every time you went by he would come running up to the edge of his pen and beg for milk and attention. Even once he was getting plenty of milk from his mom, he would still beg every time I came by. Eventually he, his mom, and his brother were put into a nursery group of several ewes with lambs, and then let outside into the pasture near the house. Every time I went out to check the lambs in that pasture he would come running over and I could hardly walk with him running around my legs.
Sadly, Little One died a few days after I left when he got stuck in the stream. It is always so hard to lose these little guys, especially after they show such a wonderful love of life and worm their way into my heart. The harder they try, the more I want them to make it. It's the hard part of reconciling a vet's love of animals with life on a farm.
