Upkeep

There's quite a bit to looking after sheep, but none of it difficult or unpleasant. In fact handling sheep, once you get the technique right, is rewarding. They're lovely - warm, soft, and sweet smelling like a pile of leaves. At least until you get to the far end.

It was time for my small flock to get their dose of wormer, a foot trim, and general check-up. I haven't bought a worming gun yet because of the expense, but I do have large syringes and I figured these would work just as well - without the needles attached of course. I'd never done a foot trim before but I looked it up in my Practical Sheep Keeping book and it seemed straighforward enough. I have foot shears and a knife, and antiseptic spray left over from treating dog wounds not worth stitching.

I think the sheep knew I was coming. All were perfectly sound the night before. By morning, Eurdora was lame on her front foot, and Eunice (newest ewe lamb) was lame behind. Typical. This was going to test my severely limited knowledge of foot care. It did.

I only have 6 ewes but it took me a good hour to pen them up, and catch hold of each one to perform the necessary ablutions. First I trimmed all four feet -

Finish with a bit of blue spray, the shepherd's friend, between the toes -

I've learned to wear gloves because the blue won't wash off your skin, it has to wear off in its own time.

The lambs were exempt from the worming and pruning, but they hung around to watch -

My syringe delivery system worked great -

 With one small caveat: I forgot the blue spray residue on my gloves -

 And now the ladies all have blue moustaches for the next week or so -

Nevermind. I'll pretend it's an homage to Salvador Dali.

I couldn't figure out what was wrong with either of the lame sheep. It wasn't obvious, no thorns or hot spots or rank smells. I needed a second (knowledgeable) opinion. Dickie the shepherd came and had a look for me the following day, by which time Eunice was better and Eudora was worse.

Foot rot. There was a small crack on the side of Eudora's foot which had allowed the bacteria to enter. We burst the infection examining her which made her immediately more comfortable. When I moved the fence to give them fresh grass today, Eudora was noticeably better, but I will probably get her a shot of penicillin from the vets Monday morning, just to be sure. Looks like I'll have a chance to practice my intra-muscular shots then.

But now Eunice the lamb has gone lame again, and I can't figure out what's wrong with her. I hope Dickie's free tomorrow.

Autumn is over in our part of England. High winds have cleared the trees in our garden of leaves and apples. It's been wet every day so Milkweed is more bog than field. Our dew pond is full again which might attact a few passing ducks. But the cold and wet condition takes its toll on all the animals. I rigged up another creep feeder to supplement the lambs -

They will still suckle from their mothers but the extra nutrition will benefit both parties.

The dogs have done 20 days on the shooting field already. Dulcie can't hold onto any weight and halfway through a wet cold day she "hit the wall" as runners say. I always carry a mini Mars bar for this sort of emergency. A quick release of glucose and the afternoon off brought her around. But the best thing we've done is install a heat lamp in the spare kennel -

It's only one of the lamps I use to keep day old chicks under, but with the kennel door closed it produces a comfortable ambient temperature. Now at the end of a work day, I can towel off the spaniels and put their coats on them to keep their muscles warm while they dry off. And I can put them directly into a warm, dry kennel in a fresh bed of straw. I still need to wire the lamp in properly but it's doing the job for now, plugged in to a waterproof socket.

Kenneled working dogs have hugely different requirements to pet dogs. They need to grow a weatherproof coat, but they also need a warm, dry place to relax and sleep. Dulcie, Podge, and Spud are having 3 feeds a day to maintain their weight, including high calorie foods like oil and eggs. It's like feeding atheletes. 

I adjust the dogs' diet every week based on their workload and how much weight they're holding. Jazz and Pip are great at maintaining their weight, but both are lazy and know how to shut off on days they don't work. Dakota holds her weight because she lives indoors. The others need extra care.

It took me time to build up experiential knowledge about dogs and about horses. I hope in time that I'll be able to build enough of the requisite knowledge to make sure my sheep are at their best. So far the sheep are surviving in spite of me.

Sheeps Week

We're in a phase of adjustment here in Dorset. The clocks went back last Sunday and we're still adjusting to losing that precious late afternoon hour. The dogs are adjusting to their workload retrieving shot birds. The pheasants are adjusting to the disturbance of shoot season (perhaps with less enthusiasm than the dogs). The ewes are adjusting to the trials of motherhood. I'm still maladjusted.

My sheep experience continues to increase, slowly, through observation. At least that's what I tell Mike, that I'm "observing sheep behaviour" when he catches me hanging over the fence mooning over the lambs. It's partly true. So far I have noticed:

1) Both the ewes are flexible about feeding each others' lambs - up to a point. The ewe loses her patience when a queue starts forming at her back end.

2) If something startles the lambs, they will start to suckle furiously as soon as the danger has passed. It seems to comfort all concerned.

3) The little ewe lamb is more reserved and clings to her mother while her rambunctious hooligan brothers are rough-housing. She's super cute though -

The lambs are growing really well. The weather has been kind and they've been able to put all their energies into getting bigger rather than staying warm. Moreover, their mothers have been good milkers and attentive. But the lambs grow on at the ewes' expense -

When you can see a ewe's spine and hip bones like this, it's time to start feeding the lambs on hard food and to move the ewes to richer pasture.

The trick to feeding the lambs is to build a creep feeder - essentially a box around the feed with bars spaced wide enough to let little lambs through and keep big ewes out.  I haven't had time to build one yet but a solution presented itself as a result of my sheep observing habits: the lambs usually napped together inside a wire tree guard too low for the ewes to get under -

Perfect. Lazy and effective.

The ewes and lambs have been in the paddock at the bottom of our drive. Now that the lambs are strong enough, and now I've ringed and tagged them, they were ready to move to Milkweed. Yesterday, I penned the ewes with their lambs, loaded them all and moved them by myself, which was a rewarding feeling.

On the theme of laziness, I decided I would just use the quad bike which was already attached to the sheep trailer. As it's not road legal, I had to take a cross-country route along field margins and rutted tracks. Here's something else I've learned: wear supportive undergarments. Quad bikes and potholes are a poor pairing. I had to drive one-handed and keep my other arm across my chest to protect my own poor pair. The sheep faired better than I did on that trip.

Lady S had kindly rented me the lambing paddock and it was time to pay up. Total cost: 2 oven-ready chickens. I dropped them in to the big house kitchen and the chef sent me off with a bag of fresh out of the oven scones. I was starving but I had a few chores to finish before I could sit down to a cup of tea and scones with jam. I left them on my counter top without thinking. I came back to this -

Empty plastic bag and guilty shepherd. Well, at least the ewes have something to eat. And what was I left with?

Another downside to using the quad bike. I might ask Santa for mud flaps

A dirty trailer that still needed cleaning.

I hope I'm painting a pitiful picture of woe and deprivation for you.

It's not all bad. I still have a lot of windfall apples to make into cakes and pies (which will NOT be left within the reach of counter surfing dogs). There are leeks, cabbages, carrots, and beets in the garden, and the chickens are still laying.

In fact you can see a clutch of Barbara's eggs at the base of our apple tree. She is not making the adjustment from summer to autumn. Barbara has been doggedly sitting on those eggs every day for the past week, and every night I lift her off the nest and put her in the hen house. Every morning she goes back to "incubating" the eggs. She's like the King Cnut of chickens, pushing back the tide of autumn with her determination to bring off another brood of chicks.

I'm also losing the battle against the tide of autumn leaves, but I don't really mind. And my activities give the cows on the other side of the hedge something to look at -

Cows are surprisingly good company, if lacking in conversation. And they don't steal my baked goods.

I wish I could say we were slowing down and taking it easy with winter coming. But pheasant season continues, and doe / hind season has started. There's space in the freezer that wants filling before the deer lose condition. Alan the horse will be back in work this week, and the flock all need worming and foot trims by next Sunday. And I need to build a creep feeder and field shelter before the wind starts coming in from the north.

We're not prepared, we're not organised, and we're rarely efficient, but we are consummate adjusters.

Strange Fruit

I have stumbled across a crop of medlars.

I say 'stumbled' like it was part of some grand adventure. Really, the tree is just at the entrance of my sheep paddock, in the garden of a currently empty cottage on the estate. The medlar fruits are odd-looking but in an ornamental way. They are the colour of pears, the shape of an apple, but with a small star-shaped bottom end.

The tree is heaving with fruit. There could be two reasons for this: 1) no one else has found it yet or 2) everyone else knows it's there but have already tried medlar and have no desire to repeat the experience. Medlar recipes commonly appear in Victorian cookbooks - which is usually a warning sign - but not so in modern cookbooks. I fear the medlar might be an historical food which, once people were no longer forced to preserve and eat it, was allowed to disappear from the culinary landscape.

Many large estate gardens still have a medlar or a quince tree hiding in the ranks of their apple orchard, but it's more for tradition's sake than anything else. As head gardener, I offered quinces, medlars, and mulberries to the kitchen but was met with a "Good god, I'd cook and serve the floormats first!" look by most of the chefs.

But, I made mulberry jelly and that was pretty tasty, so I have faith that something can be done with a small harvest of medlars. I'm no chef, but when in doubt I have two tricks up my sleeve:

1) Partner it with apples and make a chutney or jam. Apple & medlar jelly. That sounds respectable.

2) Turn it into a liquer. Vodka and sugar could make grass clippings into something I'd drink.

I'm at a disadvantage because I don't know what medlars taste like. Are they pear-like? Sweet? Dry? Do they give off the faint aroma of wet socks? Until I've tried them once, I can't concoct recipes enhanced with spices or other ingredients to bring out the medlar's full potential (however limited).

The one thing I do know about medlars is they need to be bletted. Bletting is the action of frost on fruit, causing the water to expand in the cells and break down the flesh. The fruit is bletted when it's brown and soft. Even after last night's frost the medlars are still yellow and hard. I might have to wait until November and a good run of frosty nights before I harvest the little darlings. Maybe that's why the tree is still covered in fruit. Maybe everyone else is waiting until the medlars are bletted to claim the coveted prize.

I did collect a small harvest of calendula flowers and autumn rasperries from the abandoned garden, rather than see them go to waste -

While I cut the flowers, the lambs engaged in their own harvest the other side of the fence -

All four are doing well. They're hanging around together in a little wooly gang, leaping about and returning to their respective mothers only when their bellies are empty. I know how they feel.

The Whistle Blower

Mike came home from the feed store this afternoon with rolled barley for the sheep, and this for me:

If you've never seen one before, it's a shepherd's whistle. It's specifically for working sheepdogs at a distance.

I have gun dog whistles, and occasionally the spaniels even respond to them when they're not suffering from a bout of selective hearing (commonly known as 'spanielitis'). I also have a walking stick - an 'aide memoir' - for tapping spaniels' bottoms. (Not to hurt them of course, just a little poke to remind them to steady down before the spanielitis sets in). Both are straightforward to operate.

Not so the shepherd's whistle.

I've looked on the internets and found numerous step-by-step guides for operating a shepherd's whistle. But all are about as helpful as Michaelangelo's step-by-step guide for creating great sculpture: you know the "Carving is easy; you just go down to the skin and stop" quote? Mastery of some things require the development of technique based solely on the experience of doing.

Using the shepherd's whistle involves creating a stream of air which you manipulate through a hole in the centre of the whistle with your tongue, all the while clenching it in your teeth. The hole in the front of the whistle is for attaching it to a lanyard so you can a) hang is around your neck when not in use and b) use the string to extract it from the back of your throat when you accidentally suck instead of blow. I already have experience of doing b).

The deal that came with the gift is that as soon as I've mastered the whistle, I can look at getting my first sheepdog puppy.

So far I've managed to wrench a few tortured shrieks out of the whistle, which I am unable to reproduce again except by accident. The house dogs just look at me quizzically, so I guess I haven't hit the right notes yet. My first attempts have also made me light-headed from all the blowing.

I also noticed (once the blood came back into my brain) that it's made by the ACME company. I've seen enough Wile E. Coyote cartoons to know this is a bad omen.

This whistle has the potential to create a strong working relationship between two species. So far, in my hands, its greatest potential is as a choking hazard, but I'm hopeful and persistent (and I'll be putting a lanyard on it before I try again). Just don't expect to see sheepdog puppy pictures this side of Easter 2011.

Learning Curves and Hedge Funds

I always thought of spring as the busiest season. Trees bursting into bud, seeds needing to go in, baby animals being born and all that. I'm changing my vote to autumn. The harvest waits for no man, pheasant season is in full cry, and if you're short-sighted, you've added lambing to your calendar. Spring is the start of months of good weather. Autumn is the culmination and as the temperatures drop, and the nights draw in you can feel the door closing on you, even though there's still so much to be done.

That's my excuse for going more than two weeks without getting on line. Blame nature.

It's a matter of priorities: animals first, and all other chores are optional. Anything that can be left has been left. Horse tack is cluttering the living room (the formal one, obviously). The dogs are sleeping on piles of horse blankets that need mending before the cold weather comes in. The kitchen counters are littered with concoctions, innoculations, medications and potions that no one's found time to put away. I've tried to clear one area for cooking but if you eat dinner, you take your chance that there might be a touch of worming medication or antibiotics in it. (Mike's not scooching his bottom along the carpet so either way it's not doing any harm.)

We're also impeded by minor ailments. Mike has an infected hand, and I have tendonitis. I'm supposed to wear a splint and rest it for the next 4-6 weeks but there's no chance of that. Resting does not fall in the priority pile and will have to wait until winter.

The animals are getting their fair share of ailments and meds too. Alan's lame with nothing more serious than sore hind leg, we hope. £100 worth of horse aspirin has made him comfortable and me a lot poorer. He's off work until next week at least, which rests both our injuries. I made him a pair of long reins for driving out of old horse blanket straps and some rope, and we had one trial run before injury set in. On the up side, Alan responded well to long lines and didn't mind them tangled around his feet or slapping him on his sides. I think he got the hang of it quicker than I did.

So a quick update then. As promised, a picture of the last surprise lamb delivered last night -

He's a good size, and strong. We had a 200% birth rate which is great not only because we get double the product (more lambs) but it also means I was getting the nutrition right. A ewe with reserves can bring off twins. I'm flying by the seat of my pants with the whole lambing routine, learning as I go with ample opportunity for mistakes. I have a good mentor - Dickie - who talks me down when I start to panic and has checked over my lambs and pronounced them excellent.

The moms have done the hard work, but there are still nursemaid jobs for me to do such as iodining the navel to prevent infection -

"Hey! What the..?"

With Dickie's help I'm ringing all the tails, and testicles on the rams. The older two are done already and fully recovered. 

I moved the first ewe and lambs into the garden where I could pen them together to bond and keep the lambs safe from the fox. In hindsight it was a bit overkill and extra work. The second ewe I've penned in her field with a strand of electric fence to deter foxes and it seems to be working.

It's sweet having the garden lambs but I have learned that a) sheep shit a LOT and b) lambs are just as destructive sleeping in your flower beds as chickens are scratching them up. On the plus side, the ewe has been selectively feeding on the lawn and what I class as weeds she sees as a tasty snack. So essentially she's weeding and feeding the garden, which saves me a job.

And speaking of sheep shit, there's another job I learned to do today -

Two undergrad degrees and a master's has led me here...

We've had a late burst of growth in the grass, and sometimes it can affect a sheep's digestive system. I worried that even now flies might be laying eggs, and a shitty sheep's arse is prime real estate if you're a fly. I never bathed a sheep before and not knowing what to use I made an educated guess: Woolite. I figured if it works on sweaters, which is just wool off a sheep, it should work when it's still attached to the sheep. I cut out the worst bits with kitchen shears. Prevention is better than cure.

My father visited this week and was immediately press-ganged into helping me split and stack wood for our newly built log store -

And cut the hedges -

I knew there was a view out there somewhere

And the rest of the time I've been working on the shoot. Or cleaning up after shoot days. The dogs catch up any wounded game, like this partridge which only had a few pellets in the leg. I plucked it and added it to a curry - my contribution at our harvest supper. The wings I've used on one of Spud's training dummies.

I think we're finding the rhythm of the autumn season now and maybe we're due a bit of balance. The lambing's gone well, and there are preserves in the pantry. I felt in balance yesterday when I walked to the post box with paid bills and on the way back found a few nests of eggs which the chickens had made in the hedgerow. Goods out - goods in. When I think of managing a hedge fund, I think of finding eggs and harvesting blackberries. Walking up a hedgerow with a dog is usually good for a bird or two for the pot. I'll never get rich or fat on my returns but I'm pretty happy with the exchange.

Fresh out of the oven

These twin Dorset ram lambs arrived Thursday. Mother and young are doing well -

Mom and her two boys

This little ewe lamb was born today, about 4 hours ago -

She's an absolute cracker. And just as I prepared to put my newborn lambing kit away, mother surprised us with a twin. Another ram lamb. She snuck it out in the dark so no pictures until morning.

My plans to add a new blog post have been derailed by mother nature. I'll leave you with these images for now, and get the protective fencing up around the new arrivals.

Working Dogs are known for their stamina

And here's the exception to that rule. Pip only worked one day this week.

Today is the official start of pheasant season in England, and it's not been an auspicious one. It was cancelled due to inclement weather. The guns were here to shoot partridge, but the rain and winds are so ferocious that it would be unfair to the quarry. Partridge are small birds, and ours have been rained on all night. Thankfully the guns were able to reschedule.

In all the time I've been working on this shoot, I've never known a cancelled day. The only weather that will stop a pheasant is fog or snow. Both will cause a pheasant to lose its bearings in flight, and can result in an exhausted bird falling dead to the ground. Rain is the keepers friend. Pheasants don't wander far in the rain, so you're sure to find them where you put them.

I won't be wandering far from home either. And I can get on with making some apple chutney before the winds knock down what's left on my apple tree. I can't make any blackberry jam as the 1st October is also an inauspicious day for blackberries. According to local lore, the devil spits on them after today (or, if you're from Cornwall, the devil pees on yours.) Though, it would be fun to have jam labelled 'Blackberry & Devil Spit' in the pantry.

Apple Chutney bubbling on the stove