Lambs and calves

Spring is speeding by at the moment, we're almost finished lambing, and have been shedding out(taking out any ewes that are still to lamb, or who are no longer rearing a lamb) in preparation for tailing(some call it docking) the lambs in a week or two.  The late lambers are going into a new paddock closer to home, and the 'has-beens' are off to a crop paddock to free up grass pasture for ewes who are rearing lambs. 

We have about 18 pet/orphan lambs we are feeding at the moment, three times a day.  When they are very young it is 4 times daily, and in a month or so will be down to twice a day.  It's much quicker once they get onto these buckets, feeding 7 at a time, with a few little ones still on bottles.  The first 7 get put in the pen for feeding  and then the ones on the outside get their turn, otherwise it gets pretty confusing who's been done and things get messy!

 So there has been lots of this happening here, as the girls also have a pet calf each for the first time, saved from the bobby calf(veal) truck from one of our local dairy farmers.

This is Donny and Ash, and they are pretty cute, takes me back to having a little Jersey calf of my own every year when I was a kid.

Clearly Donny is not happy about getting a halter on and learning to lead.  You always see lots of lambs and calves at the school pet day that look like they've only had a halter and lead on for five minutes before they were loaded that day - and that often is what has happened.  lol    So the girls are starting early on handling their calves.  In the interests of open disclosure these calves will one day be sent to slaughter with the rest of the farm cattle, the girls seem fine with the idea, Miss O has even suggested she could use the profit from this one to buy several next year and make even more money.  Don't get me wrong though, they do love their calves dearly and it will be a difficult day when it comes in about eighteen months!

Thanks for your kind comments on my Tis the Season finish on my last post.  I have signed up for the new SAL where we'll be making My Favourite Things quilt by Anni Downs from her new Some Kind of Wonderful book.  This is a wonderful book with lots of neat projects, but I need to get my last block of A Gardeners Journal done first.  I haven't anything to share stitching wise today, it's been a quiet week with the girls and I all feeling under the weather with head colds, but we're on the mend now.   There's Rugby World Cup quarter finals to watch on Saturday and Sunday nights so maybe I'll be more in the right frame of mind for stitching then.  GO THE ALL BLACKS!!!  ................................. and good luck to Ireland, Wales, England, France, Australia, South Africa and Argentina too! 

Have a wonderful weekend ................. Nicky