Lambs to the slaughter.

Today is tinged with sadness.The last lot of last years lambs have taken their last journey and we shall not be having any more lambings.If you have seen my journal entries you will know that we started lambing in 1995.It has been a long journey of discovery both in terms of learning about sheep and about myself.I am proud of the care we have given our ewes and lambs over the last eleven years.There have been highs and lows and lots of hard work which is why we have decided to call it a day.We are keeping the ewes for the time being until we decide what is best for them.From the beginning the welfare of our animals has been uppermost in our minds,and we keep them as naturally as possible.We started with just eight ewes building up to a maximum in 2003 of one hundred of which eighty five lambed.This proved too much for us as we aim to be present at every birth including throughout the night.After six weeks of this we were completely exhausted and have been reducing the number of ewes since then,we lambed fifty two last year.I have a notebook which amounts to a history of the last eleven years as it lists every ewe that has lambed with the date and time of her lambing,the number of lambs she had plus any problems she may have encountered and how we overcame them.This means that for any of our ewes we have a full life history and for the privileged few who have been with us from the beginning this makes impressive reading.I intend to write a separate item on some of our founding ewes including some of the trials and tribulations and some of the triumphs,and in general the triumphs win through which is why I am sad to be hanging up my lambing ropes!