Saturday 3 May 2008...6:55 pm
April Showers (cont. at the farm)
During Easter I came back from a long week on the farm in Devon which I worked on in February. This time I was helping during their lambing season so it was much busier, and so much harder work, than my week in February. The farm has about 2000 lambing ewes, all of the ewes just having single lambs were left out in the fields and those having doubles or triples were brought into the lambing sheds. After being introduced to the other people helping during lambing (including another Lucy, which was very confusing at times but nice to have another girl around) I started work straight away.
Like last time, there was the general care of the ewes (food, water, bedding, etc…) that needed to be taken care of a number of times each day and with thousands of ewes it was a lot of work! All the time we were all constantly on the look out for any ewes that were lambing or had just lambed. After any ewe had lambed we had to check that the lambs were breathing and that the ewe was licking them clean. In some cases the mothers did not show interest in their young and we would have to clear their noses of any fluid and if it still was not breathing, tickle its nose with straw or swing it while holding its back legs. After a few minutes the umbilical cord of the lambs was dipped in iodine to reduce the risk of infection and the ewe and lambs were taken into pens so that they could bond.
Sometimes the ewes couldn’t manage lambing on their own so for the sake of them and their lambs we had to intervene. My first of many experiences of this, was a difficult one; a ewe with twins, and a prolapse. The farmer, Tim, got me to find both of the lamb’s heads and front legs and before pulling them off he told me to put my finger in their mouths. “Are they both alive?” I was surprised when I put my finger in the first lamb’s mouth and I could feel its tongue moving about and then it started sucking my finger, a very surreal moment but it was definitely alive! After pulling them out (which took more strength than I expected) I had to give the ewe an injection of penicillin to prevent infection.
When it came to the lambs sucking from their mothers, some of the ewes were better at standing still than others, and some of the lambs understood what they were supposed to do better than others. The others needed a helping hand - actually two hands, although three or four would have been useful! Unfortunately some of the lambs died and some of them were rejected by their mothers. Those that were rejected were adopted onto the ewes whose lambs had died. Tim skinned the dead lambs and gave me a few anatomy lessons, before puting the skins onto the rejected lambs - most of which were then accepted by their new mothers.
Some of the lambs, though were not accepted my their mothers or their mothers died and there were no other ewes to adopt them onto so they all had to be kept together. The ‘tame lambs’ had to be fed a powdered milk four times a day (7:30am, 1:00pm, 5:30pm and 11:00pm). Most of them drank from a bucket with teats around the edge but a few had to be bottle fed.
After the ewes and lambs had been left to bond for a bit the lambs were ringed (docked and castrated) and they were put into bigger pens with other ewes and lambs to get used to finding each other in groups before they were taken out to the fields. I got to ring all of the tame lambs (there were about 50).
By the end of the week things were calming down a bit and Tim asked if I would be alright on my own for the morning as he needed to go out. I agreed as not much was happening. What I didn’t realise was that I was the only one left on the farm (other than Tim’s 13 year old niece). I was in charge. As predicted, not much happened in the morning so when Tim came back for lunch and asked if I would be okay for the rest of the day, since so little had happened in the morning I expected the same for the afternoon; what could happen? Quite a lot actually! While everyone was gone there were three ewes with prolapses, one lamb being born with only one leg coming forward, two born not breathing, as well as a handful of other lambs born that needed to be moved into pens. But I was in charge, the only one there. The only person who could put the prolapses back in and put harnesses on the ewes. The only person to deliver the lambs and make them all start breathing again. When all the other workers came back to the farm it all became more surreal, I was telling everyone else, including Tim, what to do!
On top of all all the work on the farm - when we finished I became nanny to Tim and his wife’s 7 month old son, Thomas. Andrea (Tim’s wife) cooked each evening for all the workers - not such an easy task when you have a baby to entertain, so that was my job.
By day a farm worker, by night a nanny - it’s no wonder I came back so exhausted!
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