Surrey Homes | SH66 | April 2020 | Gardens supplement

Jane Howard’s
Fables from
the Farm
It’s April, Easter is upon us, and that of
course means we’ll be busy lambing
The rams went in with the
ewes on Bonfire Night and
five months later, April Fool’s
Day, the lambs start arriving. And
every year we look forward to it,
completely forgetting the sleepless
nights, tricky births, inevitable
losses and endless amounts of
washing – it’s a messy business!
When the rams went to work in
the autumn they wore a harness
known as a raddle which holds a wax
crayon on their chest. This means
that when they serve a ewe they leave
a large coloured mark on her rump.
By changing the colour of the crayon
every 10 days or so – from orange
to blue to black – we can tell the
order in which the ewes will lamb.
We also had them scanned after
Christmas to know whether they
were carrying singles, twins or triplets
and marked them accordingly. Not
only is this useful information at 3am
when you have to investigate a tricky
birth, which could involve four, eight
or, heaven forbid, 12 legs, but it also
means we can stand by to sort out
the adoptions that will be necessary
every time we have a ewe give birth to
triplets. And in 2020 we’re expecting
more triplets than ever. Busy times.
As she only has two teats and not
enough milk for three, it’s unfair to
leave Mum with triplets as she will be
constantly bothered by
ever hungry lambs and
the weakest of the three
won’t get enough and
won’t thrive. So when
we get a triplet delivery
the Coopers 24 hour
adoption service (that’s
me) swings into action.
Soon after the birth,
and you probably only
have a window of about 24 hours, a
different ewe expecting a single will
hopefully start to lamb. Strangely
enough you always need to keep
a closer eye on these, as singletons
can grow much bigger in the womb
than the twins and triplets and
are often the trickiest to birth.
Anyway, back to the adoption. Once
the singleton birth becomes very close,
you go to the pen with the triplets and
select the strongest one. You then need
to tie its front legs together and then
its back legs together so it struggles to
stand – just like a newborn – and then
you deliver the singleton into a bucket
to collect all the gloop, cover the by now
“It’s unfair to
leave Mum with
triplets as she
will be constantly
bothered by ever
hungry lambs”
rather confused triplet in it and hey
presto show the new mum her fantastic
pair of freshly born wet twins. As long
as the adopted lamb doesn’t kick off
its shackles and walk off in disgust,
the mum is usually fooled and it’s
one of those happy ever after stories.
All the lambed ewes remain in the
shed for a couple of days to allow
everyone to get to know each other,
a process known as “mothering up”.
Then we spray the same number on
the sides of all the
new family so if any
lambs get accidentally
parted, you just pick
them up and wander
round the field with
the lost no. 53 lamb
seeking the matching
53 ewe. Sheepshaped
Pelmanism.
We only have 80
ewes and are always in awe when we
pass a field of ewes with three-figure
numbers on their sides. Impressive
stuff. So how we chuckled when a
London friend suggested we start ours
off at 101, so they too had three digit
monikers. Interestingly, the Victorians,
who had smaller flocks and no spray
paint made up their sticky dye with red
ochre and animal fat and used letters
A to Z to identify the ewes as this
required less of the precious dye than
numbering them 1 to 27. How clever.
Follow Jane Howard – and the farm – on
Instagram @coopersfarm
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