Move over James Herriot

I have just helped Moulty deliver her lamb. Which entailed a bit of tugging on lamb legs and trying to work out what was going on. Luckily the problem seemed that it was a large lamb and I did not have to worry about changing the lambs position. It looks like a girl and seems good and sturdy.

We released the quails free yesterday. The deciding factor was when two of them very brutally attacked another and killed it in quite a gruesome manner. We have been struggling trying to keep them apart and work out the dynamics to get them into friendly groups, but it was ending up so that we were keeping some of them on their own or in quite small cages, which was getting unfair so we decided that rather than sell them for meat we would let them free up on the fell the other side of the road, where there are a lot of game birds and ideal surroundings for them. I don’t know if they will survive – but having seen the way they killed one of their own, I pity any fox that thinks its going to have a go. They do live wild so it is quite possible that they will colonise.

The sheep have also been a bit of a trial. The young rams have had to be hurded back from the village and they are all now in the barn. Having got them back – which was not without trauma and with Ian carrying Tiny and us pushing and pulling Rug up the field and into the barn, we were about to go into the house and saw the ewes all head off up into the field next door and off towards the village. So we had to get them back. We then on Saturday couldn’t find Larry. After half an hour of hunting slipping and sliding in the mud in the wind and rain, we found him in the lean-to barn snuggled up in the warm and happily asleep. I was happy to see him although Ian seemed to be muttering something about the ‘little git’ between clenched teeth.

Yesterday the boys were fitted with their rubber bands to neuter them.

I’m cleaning angora fleece at the moment which gives the house a damp=-goat smell, so I have ensured that I do this when we have no viewings planned as I don’t think that this is the sort of smell which people are looking for.

Well, I’m off now to look at the latest lamb and check that all is ok.