Category Archive

The sheep moved further into the hidden hollow she’d found herself in a secluded section of overgrown hedgebank. Dense bramble rush thistle and fern help her feel safe. She was uneasy, weary; the flock’s restlessness and agitation had muddled her mind. She circled making a small nest in the middle of the impenetrable foliage, lay down closed her eyes and began to cud.

Sometime, a short time, a long time, she was not sure, she became aware of noise. The sounds of the flock moved closer and louder; it made her edgy alarmed eventually the flock passed by and all went silent. She didn’t stir. Her foot was hot and painful. She pulled at a young bramble shoot, slept, dozed and chewed the cud.

During the night she heard a vixen move close, hunting for her young. She smelt the musty sweetness and heard the rustle of the leaves. A young rabbit screamed. The night moved around her pocket of safety. Ears alert she listened for familiar sounds, nothing was recognisable. She stayed put and nibbled at her leg above the tender foot.

It had been light for some time when she emerged. She felt calmer now and the day was grey and damp. She’d been hiding for almost twenty four hours. She became aware of the emptiness of the acres around her. Silently she moved through the high rush in an effort to locate her companions.

Cattle were moving along the lane. She heard shouts and calls. The barns echoed with noise and commotion. Unease was beginning to return. She’d been unable to find the flock and unusual cattle activity was making her jittery. She made her way to the boundary fence down into the gully. Slipping and sliding along the steep sides she gingerly picked her way along the shallow water. Though she wasn’t happy walking in the water the coldness soothed her foot. She found a shallow mossy bank that was familiar and which led her into a small enclosed field. She stood in the middle looking at the cattle and people passing the gate.

She was now at a loss and continued to stand in the middle of the field. Some time passed until she heard the truck and people. The person she knew opened the gate and called to her, she felt safe and answered. But now there were two people, slowly coming towards her with sticks. She felt panic rising and tried to escape to the mossy bank. She was wild with fear; she couldn’t reach the bank so launched herself into a low tangled mass of willow branches. She knew she was going to die.

The heavy weight of a body landed on her. Fear made her go limp. Pain whizzed up her leg as her foot was cut, stung as spray fizzed. Motionless she was lifted into the truck and bounced out of the field. Time moved again, the truck stopped. The person she knew made her jump and she landed in another world. She stood looking, unmoving and silent, at her flock. She put her head down and began to graze.

brown hare

Still hush. I woke this morning to silence. I pulled back the curtains; the yard in front of the house was littered with a confetti of rose petals looking for all the world like pale pink snow; flags and rushes around the pond were askew and bent; tossed, trashed leafed branches scattered hither and thither. Rubbing gritty eyes I wandered to the window overlooking the back garden. Leaves were strewn across the grass, broad beans collapsed, showing their downy silver underbellies whilst the washing hung in heavy sodden droops, now leadened and deadened after a night of wild dervish dancing. The first gentle fingers of sunlight touched the farm with deceptive normality.

Wrestling on clothes, head cotton-wool and eyes still grainy. I splashed cold water. Fumbled for socks, jacket and waterproof trousers, pulled on wellies and went to let the dogs out. No excited morning greeting today, they were almost self-effacing. Patting my thigh I indicated we were going to check the cows, calves and youngsters in Flop Meadow…

Let me take you back to yesterday when wind and rain threatened - starting, stopping; spattering and retracting; dark clouds ominously collecting overhead then blown hither and thither only to bank up once more. The youngsters (still on home farm; sitting out the three weeks before their second BT vaccination on Friday) had broken through into our hay crop. Having managed to climb a vertical hedge bank and stomp-stamp-crash a newly laid hedge they then ran helter-skelter in excited grass frenzy through the meadow. Collecting them up and remonstrating with them I decided to put them in with the steadying influence of the two freshly calved cows and calves. The field was secure, there was enough grass and it was just for two days. But more chaos ensued. The yearlings, still wound up, were particularly drawn to Ginny and her week-old baby; they stampeded around her in raucous enthusiasm. Ginny was distraught and desperately tried to protect her calf from this overbearing interest. Give them a few minutes I thought and they would settle. But no, as the storm, wind and rain gathered momentum so did their high-spirited behaviour. Ginny started up a rhythmic bellowing, the youngsters echoed her, whilst the calf tried to find peace and quiet in an impenetrable patch of rush and thistle. Strangely there seemed to be no interest in the other calf and cow who continued to graze and rest calmly on the periphery of the goings on. My presence seemed to increase their agitation so I took to squinting at them through hedge. Even though Ginny’s bellows continued all day and into the night occasionally booming over the raging wind nothing untoward was happening to her calf.

…and so back to this morning. All appeared calm as I opened Flop meadow gate, albeit the grass was flattened and skewed by the wind and rain. But my presence seemed to rekindle their bizarre behaviour. Odd? I’ll have to move the cows and calves out, I thought, as I headed off to the truck to check the rest of the stock.

There I found ewes and lambs clustered around the top gate in Cow Moor. Unusual. As I appeared they too began shouting, calling and surging around me, pushing to get out of the field. This was weird. They had grass, they had water; and they’ve certainly experienced worse storms than last night, yet they were tense with anxiety. Maybe I’ll have to move them too, I thought, as I drove down to check the main herd in the River Meadows.

These would certainly be happy and contented I thought; sheltered from the worst of the wind and rain with ample grazing. How wrong was I? As soon as they saw me walking over the field they started towards me, ears forward semaphoring madly, restlessly regrouping, high-stepping and collecting up their calves. I sensed the beginnings of herd panic and sent the dogs back to the truck as it could become dangerous for them. I tried moving amongst them making soothing sounds and reassuring noises. But they would have none of it. They continued to shout and move nervously about looking around for an imagined threat or imagined enemy. What was going on with all my animals this morning?

Calm, contentment and peace has now returned. What had affected all the stock? A brewing storm? The full moon? Or maybe the approaching summer solstice? Possibly a touch of all three – I haven’t experienced the like of it before.

It was hot and windy and oh-so-bright. Friday, last week. The sea spangled and sparkled in ten million dazzling triangles momentarily blinding the eye with strings of black blots gliding across a backdrop of shimmering rainbows.

We strolled slowly through the crowds, contented cats full of tapenade (a paste of olives, tuna, anchovy and capers), anchoïade (crushed anchovies in oil, served with raw vegetables), grand aioli (poached salt cod, with vegetables and aioli sauce), farci (aubergine, courgette, tomato, onion stuffed with a delicately perfumed forcemeat on a rich tomato sauce) and tourte (a pie of potatoes, onion and garlic bound together with cream and eggs, wrapped in cured ham and crumbly pastry, served with crème fraiche and salad) washed down with glasses of ice cold rosé, the palest of pale pink. We watched in relaxed companionship the remains of the morning’s fish market being packed away and listened to the harsh nasal twang of swarthy Marseillais fisher-folk as they hollered and shouted to one another across the port above the impatient revving traffic and gush of their flushing hoses. Little Camille, entranced by twinkling rainbow prisms caught in the cascade of cleaning water, ran, arms outstretched, trying to catch the elusive crystal drops. And a seagull shat on Benjamin.

In all the clamour I almost didn’t hear it. Insistent, irritated it brring-brringed, bring-brringed, brrringed against my hip. My phone! I pressed it firmly against one ear but even with my hand clamped tightly over the other could barely make out the faint voice at the other end.

“Mum…..bluetongue…we’m….ade….Devon now’s….red could…tion zone!”

“What? What? Olly, can’t hear…shout. Very noisy. What’s that? What? Ohmygod did you say we’re now a protection zone. Oh shit, oh no! Where is it? When did it happen? Have you phoned the vet? What did they say? Oh heavens. You’ll have to vaccinate. Is there any vaccine? What did you say the vets say? What? When? Hang on. Hang on, I’ll just find a hiding place. You want me to come home? Hang on.”

Eventually I got the gist of Olly’s call. We didn’t have bluetongue disease in Devon. The vaccination programme had been going so well they had now advanced the protection zone to Devon. Vaccine should be made available from the 26 May. Hoorah! This was good news, not the catastrophe I originally thought. I asked Olly to call the vets, confirm our stock numbers and get an idea of when the vaccine would be released. A couple of frustrating shouted calls later and we had a clearer idea of timing. The vaccine most probably wouldn’t be available until I was back.

We arrived back last night. I phoned the vets first thing this morning. My vaccine would be ready for collection after four this afternoon. I’ve got it. It’s in my fridge…and tomorrow, first thing, we’ll start bringing the stock back to begin our vaccination programme. Soon, but not just yet, I’ll breath a little more freely!

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been stretched, scrambled and thoroughly tangled in the sharply contrasting ribbons of my life.
It was the dreaded fashion show. The last thing on earth I feel like doing at the end of a long draining winter is modelling…especially alongside gloriously nubile exquisite eighteen year olds. I moaned, complained and protested; pleaded, implored and beseeched all to no avail. I was ‘in’ – part of the show and nothing short of dropping down dead was sufficient to winkle me out. There was the demanding, time-consuming merry-go-round of rehearsals, fittings, makeup and music to be juggled around the demanding, time-consuming merry-go-round of housed animals, mind-bending bawling cows, rush topping and field rolling. It happened; it was a glamorously glitzy fashionista extravaganza and I managed to avoid catching a glimpse of myself in any of the three hundred twinkling mirrors.

I mentioned backalong my son Ben was moving to France with his French partner Berengere and their little daughter Camille at the end of April. They were keen for us to visit them. They wanted to show us the wonders of Provence (Berengere is Marseillees), explore the area they’re hoping to live in, see where they are going to work, celebrate their choice of wedding venue and of course to meet the French contingent – the whole of the Ize family. With their and our busy schedule the end of May seemed the only opportunity. On impulse I arranged our visit for the late May bank holiday, relieved once the cows were out and relishing the quasi freedom that followed.

But there was shearing to take care of and the little matter of two late calving cows that looked imminent. Shearing was planned for last Sunday but as so often with these things the rain intervened and Simon re-booked for Tuesday evening – the night before we were due to leave. As sometimes happens when things are meant to be one of the cows conveniently calved on Tuesday just before shearing was executed with efficient speed.

Now I’m writing from Marseilles, outside on a warm evening with swifts screaming overhead, being entertained by Camille and getting to know my new, and very welcoming, French family.

Karin has very kindly sent me a link to a page from the Institute of Animal Health which has a selection of presentations given by several members of her group at an NFU meeting. You’ll see the presentations listed at the bottom on the left hand side– just click on them to view. (the above link is now working!)

She has also included three papers that you might find interesting

Bluetongue 1 Bluetongue 2 Bluetongue 3

Another link which you might also find informative is Farming on Sunday

If you have any questions about bluetongue the Institue of Animal Health have an email account iah.bluetongue@bbsrc.ac.uk. where your questions will be answered by one of the bluetongue group - the most appropriate person for the question.

Karin will be giving another talk in Cornwall at The Conference Hall, Duchy College, Rosewarne, Nr Camborne TR140AB on Thursday the 22nd May at 7.30pm. If it’s near enough to you I suggest to try to get there as her presentation really is superb.

I hope you find this useful. If there’s anything else you want to know I’ll see if I can help.

Locks Park is thought by some to be rather special. When visiting ecologists, environmentalists and conservationists ooh and ahh over our flower-filled meadows, the butterflies, birds and bees, the richness and diversity of the wildlife, hedgerows and pastures I feel privileged to live and farm such a piece of land. But I’m also made to feel culpable. When completing the infamous Higher Level Stewardship application I was brought to task over keeping sheep and ‘lost points’ as this is considered detrimental to the wildlife.
‘Bbbut’ I stammered ‘Sheep are good little farmers. They aerate the soils, break open rush clumps, encourage other plant species. Mixed grazing is important for many reasons too. And …’
I was cut short. Sheep, I was informed, eat flowers, so are unwelcome.
I also have too many cattle. More points lost. What about replenishing nutrients in depleted soils, sensitively of course, as in dung spreading and liming? Frowned upon.

I’m told that farms like this have always been subsistence farms. Minimal stock was kept, I mean just look at the buildings. Proves a point really.

I scratched my head and thought ‘I wonder. I’ll ask Elli’. Elli is the daughter of the couple we bought the farm from eighteen years ago. Elli is enthusiastic and a keen member of the community. Athletic, up before the crack of dawn and when not working all god’s hours she’s often seen cycling up three-in-one hills with her graceful dog Mel beside her. Her father, George, came to Locks Park when he was a small boy of six and seamlessly took over farming it from his father and mother when they retired. Elli has a deep affinity for the place. She remembers well the stories her grandparents and father told of their lives here. She reminisces on those fabled forever, long hot summers and winters of snow and icicles. Helping out on the farm throughout her childhood she continued even after she’d left and married running her sheep on the Rutleighs. She loves the place and I believe if circumstances had been different she would have gladly taken over from her parents.

I knew she would know exactly what was farmed here and how – it’s part of her very being, her core. “Well now, twenty-five to thirty milking cows. They were up at the house and in all winter. Followers, young stock and the like: we wintered them out on the bottom of Scadsbury. Never in. Again twenty-five to thirty. You know max, Paula.”

the out-wintering land, Scadsbury meadow

Scadsbury was forty acres of rented land. Land, unfortunately, we never managed to acquire, and the out-wintering field she was talking about is the most glorious ten acres of flower-filled culm.

“The cows were grazed at home on Top, Flop, Little Hill, Five Acres, Dung and Rushy. Followers continued over at Scadsbury, you know, when the grass came on in the better fields.”

She went on to say they never brought in any forage, cutting it all at Locks. Fertiliser, 20-10-10, was applied, sparingly of course, as well as lime and slag when needed.
“Even on Dillings?” I chip in. Dillings being our ultra special flower filled meadow.
“Yes, yes, of course.”
They used to bale up rushes for bedding and she can’t remember them ever buying in straw. “Nothing was ever tilled at Locks, too wet, not even in the war. Yes, I know I’m right, though I think they once did a small piece over Scadsbury and we must’ve baled that as straw.”

And sheep? “Oh, eighty ewes give or take.”’

So who’s right? These small, beautiful, diverse farms were working, commercial farms. We’ve been left a legacy that no money can create. Should we now treat their land as museum pieces – to be polished and treated with kid gloves, or should we too work them to provide food and income, allowing them to reflect the character of our age, not ages past?

An afterthought. I believe I’m trying to express my idea of what I feel is wondrous and astonishing. So let me try and find an analogy. To me true beauty in a human has nothing to do with the plastic nip and tucked, contrived, gleaming and polished doll-like exterior we are apparently meant to aspire to in today’s consumer-driven/celebrity-culture existence. True beauty is an extraordinary mix of the physical and metaphysical, the body and soul to use a well worn phrase. A magnetic pull towards a radiating working energy. Not a self-serving manufactured appearance deprived of age or history. So if you can translate these clumsy thought images to farms (the physical) and nature (the spirit) maybe you’ll have an inkling of what I’m trying to express.

flowers in Dillings

A quick update on the bluetongue information. Unfortunately there has been a technical hitch with converting the two Dutch power point presentations into pdfs. Andrew, who is very kindly doing this for me, is away on holiday this week, but as soon as he is back I’m sure that the problem will be resolved and we’ll be able to either upload the pdfs or give a link to them.

The good news is that I’m in contact with Karin from Pirbright who is keen to help and is willing put some information together for the blog. Though due to the warmer weather over the past week she has been extremely busy and won’t be able to do much before the weekend.

But, with a bit of luck, by next week I should have pulled together some useful sources of information that you will hopefully find helpful.

wild crab apple blossom

Don’t despair I’m still in the process of getting pdfs of the Bluetongue presentations. Hopefully either copied onto CDs or emailed to me. It’s taking a little longer than anticipated, but they will be here.

Meanwhile the countryside has undergone a transformation in the last seventy-two hours. Flowers and foliage are burgeoning…by the hour – the minute – the second. Just a few days ago I was bemoaning the lack of early purple orchids – now they are everywhere. A battalion of slender purple-magenta spears guard a corner of the Hatherleigh road; further along a sunlit gathering cluster exotically, decked in shades of rose-mauve, intense red-violet and faded purple-pinks. Truly a meeting of sumptuous beings, their pages tiny dog violets peeping through the formal rosettes of glossy-green spotted leaves.

early purple orchid

Verges explode in a sudden froth of cow parsley.

The soft pink-white flowers of the quince tree open like stars. A wild crab apple is a vision of blossom at the entrance to Scadsbury where heather-pink lousewort carpets the field between wet fronds of mosses and shoots of purple moor grass.

common lousewort

Not only are my eyes bombarded at every turn by colour, growth, life, but my ears are assailed by a hundred different bird songs. I’m not nearly good enough; I can’t decipher the many different tunes. I need Robert to point out the blackcap, the willow warbler, the coal tit and tree pipit. Yesterday garden warblers returned as did our first resident swallow and, at last, an orange tip butterfly appeared, to be quickly followed by others.

Yet amongst this achingly beautiful confusion of life, a tragedy. This morning, early, in the softest soft green drizzle, a ewe cast herself. Brutally split by ravens her guts spilled in glistening slippery warm pink ribbons across the green grass; eyes empty bloodied sockets; her mouth, tongue and tail cavernous dark black-red wounds slowly oozing bloody streams. Alone in the field by her side her lamb called and called and called.

“So you think it’s going to be bad? Well, you’re wrong…

We shuffle in our seats, steal surreptitious glances at one another, clear our throats and half smile. A rustle of whispers stirs through the listeners.

…it’s going to be devastating! Don’t underestimate for a second what effect this disease will have on your stock, you and your business.”

Jaws drop. We sit stock still. He has everyone’s undivided attention: Marco Zerhoef, the vet from Holland who has hands-on experience of dealing with Bluetongue, the disease that’s decimated the livestock industry in much of Northern Europe.

He continues “In Holland we were unprepared. We’d heard of it yes, but we thought the handful of cases that bubbled up in 2006 and then died down was the end of it. A one off, nothing to get excited about. How wrong we were! In 2007 the first cases in Holland occurred in July, but we misdiagnosed them as sunburn – it had been an unusually hot spring – and photosensitisation. We correctly identified the disease too late and by August nearly every farm in our practice had contracted Bluetongue. The disease continued to snowball with unprecedented effects.”

He went on to explain what we could expect. Showed us images of cows and sheep; oedematous, encrusted with lesions, lame and unable to drink or walk; and calves, malformed, mummified, suffering severe encephalitis and other unusual deformities. Youngsters that failed to thrive. Depressing graphs, facts and figures.

The only thing they could do was nurse the sick and dying, helping to relieve the excruciating symptoms. It’s an awful disease, killing 40% of sheep and causing long-term damage to those that survive and to cattle.

“You” he carried on “have a chance. Have a chance to be a little more prepared. And a chance, maybe, to get in front of it with the vaccine.”

A Dutch dairy farmer gave his first hand experiences of coping with Bluetongue in his well kept milking cows, calves and heifers and the ongoing effects the disease is continuing to have on his stock and business. Needless to say, milk production has been severely reduced; his followers lack growth and are giving just a small percentage of their expected yield, his cows are difficult to get in calf, calves die in utero, and so on.

Karin Darple, a vet from Pirbright and a Bluetongue expert who has been working on the disease and vaccine, gave her presentation next – and it was superb. What she doesn’t know about Bluetongue isn’t worth knowing. She had very practical advice on how to cope with the disease, whether and when insecticides would be appropriate, housing versus the outdoors and much, much, more.

Karin would like to see 100% take up of the vaccine as soon as it hits the shelves, but EU legislation prevents this! Vaccine can only be given in Protection Zones where the disease has already struck, not in the surrounding Surveillance Zones. Karin couldn’t stress enough that speed is of the essence: to stand a chance of avoiding the devastating effects of the disease we must vaccinate ahead of it – we must prevent the virus from getting established.

There was far too much useful information to put in this post. I have asked my vet for pdf copies of all three presentations. Those that I’m able to, I’ll link to from my blog. If they are too large I’d be willing to email you a copy if you are interested. Leave me some contact detail in the comment section and I’ll get back to you. Please also look at the Warmwell site and the link Jane Barribal left for more information.

bluetongue 4

The infuriating niggle-niggle that keeps irritating and scratching persistently away in my mind’s eye is ‘you!-you-ostrich-head-in-the-sand’ and ‘maybe-if-I-look-from-behind-my-hands-it-won’t-happen’ as well as the ‘if-I-squint-I-might-not-really-see-what-I’m-looking-at’. I don’t know if you experience them…those irksome posters that march across your field of vision making sure you are perpetually aware of a subject you really don’t want to think about. This particular no-no is, of course, Bluetongue. And no, it won’t go away however much I will it.

As I breathe deeply, sigh and marvel at the fabulous weather of the last few days, another part of me is scanning for midges and hoping that the cold, frosty mornings and chilly Easterly wind might give us a few more weeks grace. Might, miracles of miracles, allow us to evade the next month of certain infestation and infection. At least, get us a little bit nearer the promised vaccination.

I’m itching – operative word here – to get the cows out. But if cold wet rain, sleet and snow – in fact a ‘fimble-winter’ - is the recipe for that miracle, well, bring it on!

The day before yesterday the midges were biting…and hard. The cows were careering about, bellowing and kicking; a heavily fleeced sheep cast herself itching; and the rams decided that the persistent irritation obviously originated from one of the others which resulted in a bloody battle. I also frenziedly scratched and pulled at my hair. It hasn’t been too bad since then.

This evening I’m attending a talk arranged by my vets on Bluetongue. The speakers will be a Dutch vet who has first hand experience, Intervet, the vaccine manufactures and possibly a vet from Animal Health. I wait to see what, if anything, I can do.

A couple of days ago I sat on the bench in front of the house in a tee shirt and ate my lunch, I almost felt too hot. I cut the grass – and sweated. I flung open the windows and doors. Thousands of clusterflies emerged from the roof and the thatch tremmeled with their frenetic infuriating whine-buzz. The dogs looked for shade. The cows shouted expectantly – ‘had I forgotten turnout?’ The sheep could hardly be bothered to rouse themselves for their evening feed. And we cut our first asparagus.

Today there was no looking for midges flying over the sheep. No tea on the bench either. It was April Whiteout!

Checking the sheep yesterday I found green. Look! It’s just beginning…

Touches in the willows alongside the pond in First Rutleigh.

My wolf dog, Ness, waiting patiently whilst I looked for more signs of spring.

Amazing molinia - purple moor grass.

On Saturday the rain hurled rods and sleet flung stinging shot; the wind whipped and howled, crashing and banging anything and everything with vandalistic glee; the fields ran and sighed with cold clay water – and I lost a lamb. She died from pasteurella. She was bonny, big and strong; she and her sister were some of the first lambs to be born.

I’d been up in the top yard checking the buildings were holding out, and the ewes and lambs hadn’t succumbed to drowning or hypothermia. Surprisingly everyone was okay though a mite wet and bedraggled; the ewes had sensibly brought most of the youngest lambs into shelter. Returning back down to the farmhouse Robert made some remark about the water supply and so couple of hours later I went back up to check all was well. And there she was, dead. Pasteurella is that sudden. It’s a bacterium, p. heamolytica, which leads to severe pneumonia. I’ve never had a case before on this farm. They say if you’ve had one probably more will follow so I’ve been keeping an ever watchful eye on the flock and…I dare say no more.

But what a difference a day makes.  It was time to move Dot, her offspring and a couple of other ewes and lambs up to rejoin the main flock.  Walking them slowly up the hill to the Rutleighs I felt and smelt a balmier air.  A definite stirring. The verges along the lane had erupted with the crumpled unfurling of cow parsley and hog weed.  Down in the dip the pungent cat’s pee smell of wild currant mixed with earthy watery dampness. Primroses cover the hedge banks and nestled in a sheltered mossy hollow I found the first shy violet. Promise…

Everyday I check the ewes with eagle eye. Once over the frantic, hectic lambing and immediate post lambing days it’s very easy to rest on one’s laurels, sit back, enjoy the hilarious antics of growing lambs and the satisfying sight of the flock contentedly grazing.

One of my problems this year is too much milk…yes, too much milk! Supposedly due to last year’s wet summer I’ve had a higher than normal percentage of singles. A proportion of ewes that generally twin have given birth to single lambs and yet are still producing milk enough for two; resulting in engorged, painful udders until lamb, mum and milk sort themselves out - regulate. This can resolve itself naturally but not always, and if ignored could lead to mastitis. Mastitis in sheep is very serious, unlike mastitis in cows, and almost certainly results in the loss of the udder if not the ewe. An ‘udder’ (groan - sorry, just couldn’t help myself…) problem is orf. The stress of lambing can cause a break-out of orf pustules around the teat area (similar to reoccurring shingles in humans). It’s very painful and the ewe will prevent the lamb from sucking – and, you’ve got it…inflamed udder, damaged teat and possible mastitis if not detected and treated.

Today at  feeding time I noticed a young feisty ewe with a very lopsided udder. Unfortunately the sheep were thinning out around the troughs (the easiest time to catch them is when they’re in a feeding frenzy) and she saw me coming. After several abortive attempts at trying to catch her I was about to give up when I thought I would try out some sheep whispering.

Crouching, I approached her and her lamb slowly, very, very slowly with my arms outspread. Looking her directly in the eye, I mumbled soft sounds whilst gradually moving forward. My mind was totally focused. Edging closer and closer I saw her fear and anxiety reached fever pitch then gradually subside; her breathing steadied. I was inches from her. I made no attempt to catch her. I waited just a second or so; she took a steady step towards me, looking unswervingly into my eyes she put her head forward to snuffle my hand. For a moment we were frozen together - a tableaux. She allowed me to put my arm around her chest, start the milk flowing from her swollen udder and encourage her lamb to suck.

It was over in minutes. One trance-like udder-relieved ewe and her lamb rejoined the flock and one happily flabbergasted shepherd walked the half mile back home - grinning.

In the glow of the setting sun on Monday evening Dot gave birth to twins. The last lambs of 2008 to be born. Dot is my oldest sheep (to find out more about her click on Sheep Secrets) and quite a character - even Robert has a soft spot for her and he has no time whatsoever for sheep. I was hoping to keep her away from the tups last autumn, but Dot had other ideas. I kept my fingers crossed that at least she would spare herself and have a single - but no, in true Dot style, she was in lamb to twins…yet again.

Old productive ewes carrying twins can run into problems during the later part of the pregnancy. Pregnancy toxaemia can develop as the fast growing lambs take more energy than the ewe can take in. If the signs are not seen early on the ewe can become so depleted she’ll stop eating all together; having reached this point it becomes very difficult to pull her back to recovery.

Over the last month I’ve watched Dot with an eagle eye and as soon as I saw her interested in food was waning I took measures to make sure she had access to an easy unchallenged measure of oats and molasses. Soon she was back to her old self, bright and lively, though still thin.

Dot gave birth on Monday evening with the minimum of fuss and bother. But she wasn’t out of the woods quite yet. With the unborn lambs having used up all her resources and her labour having sapped every last ounce of energy, she had nothing left to make milk with. It’s a fine line allowing the lambs to suckle to encourage milk supply and teaching them to suck a bottle to substitute the ewe’s milk. But with patience one eventually gets the balance right.

Old ewes can crash after the stress of giving birth, and Dot did. The immediate need for energy and the changing hormones can cause digestive upsets and prohibit the liver from working properly. So it’s careful nursing and feeding, letting the ewe have access to ivy and certain plants that will help her rebalance her metabolism. I gave her a multi-vitamin jab as B vitamins help kick start the liver.

We’re there! Today Dot is nearly back to normal and has begun grazing, making some milk and eating a small quantity of whole oats. Her lambs are bonny and bouncy and joy of joy the little ewe lamb is a replica of her mum – a mini Dot!

So here’s to Dot’s last lambs…and a peaceful retirement!

bluetongue’s winter warmer

Now here’s a thing. I had a fit of the giggles. Actually it was probably a touch of mini-hysteria; the uncontrolled, raucous, thigh-slapping, tears-pouring-down-face kind, coloured by total disbelief. Wishful thinking there – what I would hope to be total disbelief.

In this week’s New Scientist under the heading ‘Bluetongue’s Winter Warmer‘ we were told about the distinct possibility of bluetongue virus overwintering in the unborn calf cosseted and protected by the cosy bubble of bovine uterine warmth.

And as those hungry veracious biting midges reappear (the end of the non-vector period was the 15th March) these bonny babies would become a delicious fresh source of the bluetounge virus. Hey-presto! Yup, you have it in one.

Pirbright suggest there should be additional controls targeted at newborn animals. Now, me-wonders, what on earth have they in mind? No vaccine around yet. Could only be one other thing.

And if that’s not sinister enough – listen to this…the only bluetongue virus ever seen to cross the placenta of infected mothers to infect their foetuses was a laboratory-adapted strain used in experiments with sheep in the 70s.

Ring any bells? Shades of last summer’s FMD fiasco? Afterall the great and the good have been wondering how the BTV8 strain gained such an unshakable foothold in northern Europe.

Maybe they now have their answer.

I’ve surfaced from a surfeit of lambings. Zombie-like and mindless. Why?

It doesn’t seem to matter much if you have a large or small flock – for one reason or another it evokes the same reaction in the shepherd. I started off my shepherding with a dozen or so Longwools expanding to two hundred Mules and Mule-Suffolk crosses when I was dairying, back down to a medium flock of Herdwicks which I grazed over moorland on the North Devon coast and finally to my Whiteface Dartmoors here at Locks. Oh, and somewhere in there was a sprinkling of mad hysterical Shetlands that Robert gave me as a present one Easter – never again! Each breed has its good and bad points and it really depends what you’re after as to what breed you choose. The main thing is you like what you’ve got – that will help you tolerate multitudinous sins…

Sheep generally lamb together, it’s part of their flock survival strategy. So you are dealing with rapid-fire; that’s lots of births in quick succession, many of them multiple, and associated difficulties.

And then there’s temperament, theirs and yours. Sheep have tendency towards hysteria when they lamb whether there’s a problem or not; but if you’re dealing with a complication, and the ewe you’re helping suddenly decides she’s not dying and legs it across a muddy field, or uses the lambing shed as a race track, it can be difficult to keep one’s patience and cool.

And patience, calmness and time are definitely needed - to make sure all newborns have suckled and have a belly full of colostrum (first milk full of fats and antibodies): baby lambs are tiny and it’s imperative they suckle as soon as possible after birth. Once ewes have lambed and are penned, ewes and lambs are bonded, and lambs are sucking well …it’s maintenance time - water bucket, hay net, feed, bedding. At the same time you are dealing with all this you could have a handful of ewes in varying stages of labour. It’s trying to be everywhere at once that’s energy sapping.

Twelve to twenty-four hours after birth, all lambs (providing they are strong and healthy) need double-tagging in the ears, tail docking, and castrating if males; mothers need their feet trimming (they haven’t been done for the last three months  of their gestation) and worming. When lambs have recovered from handling, tagging, docking and castrating they are numbered along with their mums for easy counting and identification in the field. Mine are transferred to an adjacent nursery field close to the house with access to shelter. Back in the lambing shed, the pens are mucked out and disinfected ready for the next occupant.

Every year due to tiredness or just lambing pandemonium there’s someone whose tail is forgotten, a tag wrongly recorded or a lamb who slips through as a female when he’s a male and should have been castrated. I have a note book in the shed which I translate onto the lambing sheet in the house – there are always mistakes in transcription, however hard I try!

And that, in a nutshell, explains the dazed, shell-shocked expression friends’ or acquaintances’ have when they say in a rather bemused fashion ‘Oh, I’ve been lambing’.

I’m afraid I am exhausted, weary and dragging a body around that seems to be made of led. I mentioned the sheep were hanging onto their lambs this year and according to my calculations only had the next couple of days in which to lamb. Well, that’s just what they’ve done. Since yesterday afternoon lambs have been dropping left, right and centre – I’ve only a handful left to go! The cows, not wanting to be left out of the fun, thought they would add a bit of spice by having a couple of calves too.

My bed beckons. Sinking my head into a soft pillow and letting oblivion wash over me for a few hours would be ultimate bliss. I’ll leave you with a picture of some of the first shoots of wild garlic I found the other day. It’s green, it’s peaceful, it’s not an animal and it’s not going to have babies….

plannin’ and dreamin’ that she’ll have some time to spare away from that lambing affair…

The dogs find this time of year a trifle tedious. Apart, that is, from the delicious morsels that come from multitudinous birthing and milk-sucking baby animal - more detail would be too much information. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday I visited my mum. During lambing it’s difficult to leave the farm so I try and see her as much as I can before it starts. I make a quick dash down to Peter Tavy after lunch, have tea with her, and I’m back in time to do the animals. The extra hour or so of daylight now makes all the difference.

As the crow flies it’s no great distance. The road though follows a scenic route, narrow, windy, hilly; peppered with hamlets and speed restrictions. Reasonably quick if you’re the only vehicle but frustratingly slow if you catch a lorry, bus, tractor or tourist. Monday was a frustrating day and I was clock watching by the time I arrived. I noticed the light on in her room, ran up the stairs to the back door, calling to her as I pushed open the door to her room. I stopped dead, something was very wrong. A foul smell hit me. Taken aback, unsure, I called out.

It’s me, it’s Paula. It’s me. Are you here? What’s happened? Are you okay?

A small rasping croak replied. Yes, darling, just lying down.

I walked up to the bed. There she was. Curled, tiny; papery grey-white translucent skin stretched taught, she looked, for all the world, like a foetus. Large pillows surrounded her, engulfing her frail jumble of bones in a blowsy puff of nest. Her head, still, unmoving, looked unnaturally large, cheek-bones and jaw line sharply etched against the white sheets. Her eyes, sunken and bruised, slowly turned towards me, a filmy gauzy blue, no longer looking outwards but inward at some better world.

Darling, just lying down. Is daddy there?

No, no, he’s not. Not at the moment. What’s happened? I stroke her hand and head so as not to alarm her, trying to still my fear and anxiety.

Just having a small sleep. Is daddy there?

Not yet mummy. You have a little rest. I’ll go and get you a drink, shall I? I stroke her gently, letting her know I’m going.

I fly down the corridor to find someone, one of the carers, anyone. No one’s around. No residents either. No one. What’s happened? The doors are sealed, notices on them. I’m not concentrating. I see Lynn, Faith, Julie around a table. I gesticulate. They let me in.

We’ve got Norwalk virus. I left a message on your phone. We’ve shut ourselves to all visitors. Paula you’ve got to go. Now!

But Morna. I can’t leave her. I can’t leave her like this.

It’ll be okay. She’ll be okay. Honestly, it lasts around twenty-four hours. Now go.
No, you mustn’t go into her room. There’s hand wash. Leave.

This is the hardest thing I’ve done. I leave. Don’t let her be taken like this. Please.

the first wind flower or wood anemone 

This year’s first lambs, born at mid-day today, a few days early. Interestingly the ewe, a second lamber, lambed on exactly the same day last year. Though young, she chose well - a good time of day for their shepherd and mild gentle weather for the lambs.

Being licked dry.

A few minutes later they attempt their first wobbly, unsteady steps.

Searching for the teat. One is a little eager and is sucking hard on his brother’s face!

Yesterday a heavy metal shearing stand fell, with some force, onto my head and shoulder. Taken completely by surprise I couldn’t answer the urgent questions as to whether I was okay. I had no idea.

I’d been waiting for Simon, my shearer, to come and dock the ewes prior to lambing. Yesterday morning he called to say he would be over mid-day. We finished getting the lambing shed ready during the morning. The shed originally housed cattle; since building the cow palace it’s become a useful covered area to store the tractor, stock trailer and other pieces of farm machinery. The problem we face each year is finding a home for the various bits of machinery whilst the sheep are in situ. Once we have squeezed turners and toppers, tractors and trailers into impossibly small vacant places we put up pens, plumb in water-troughs, install hay racks, straw down, and, hey-presto, we have a lambing shed conveniently near the house, yards and nursery fields.

All had gone smoothly. The ewes had been gently and expertly docked. Robert, Simon and I were chewing-the-cud over various topics whilst clearing up. We’d noticed an udder that was particularly full and another ewe that appeared to have an overly fat tail. Chatting and moving through the sheep, not wholly focused on what was happening behind me, there was a sudden shout from Simon… a rather strange noise followed – metal connecting with my head and shoulder. I had no idea what happened. I have recollection of eyes and mouths worriedly speaking to me. I remember easing myself to a bale and thinking what the hell are they going on about? I felt none of the anger or immediate pain one usually does when you’ve banged your head, elbow or toe. Just mystified and, well, dazed. I remember saying I had to go in and get a jab for a ewe and sort of wandered off.

So here I am. I might be mightily changed, for all I know. I’m waiting for star-spangled clarity, inspirational thoughts and the sudden ability to be a truly remarkable solver of the world’s problems. Unfortunately none of these things have manifested themselves as yet. The head seems to be in one piece, albeit with a rather large soggy bloody protuberance on the back and there’s also a bruised swelling on my shoulder and neck. But having calved two cows today I guess I’m still just the ordinary old Paula – though do let me know if you see a change!

bluetongue 2

My fears have been confirmed. We are in the bluetongue surveillance zone. I arrived home this evening checked the answer phone and there was the man from DEFRA with his recorded message – in a dead-pan voice he stated ‘some, part, or all of my holding now came within the bluetongue surveillance zone and…’

Below is an excerpt from an email sent to me by a fellow farmer in Norfolk. I won’t add anything. The words tell their own story - poignant and thought provoking.

‘Our stock are our livelihood, such as it is, we run an organic beef suckler herd and 700 laying hens, and work long hours trying to make a living, but that’s life: farmings’ shit at the moment, but what else do we do?’

Last year they were hit by restrictions from both FMD and Avian flu (twice), having just, in the very nick of time, saved their entire suckler herd from drowning during the floods they heard the news about bluetounge. In her own words…

‘Just after that Bluetongue was detected, and we thought Now What!!? how do we deal with this? what are the symptoms? is it contagious? does it cross species? and the media had a field day; yet again; (They virtually camped in the area during the first Avian Flu outbreak- 9 miles from us) and there was no clear information, later on the farmers that had cows with the disease said there were few symptoms to tell they were affected, but since then our vet has been trying to keep abreast of the disease, and how it will affect cows in the future, and it seems as though some of the affects of the disease is to cause infertility in some and may cause calves to be born with abnormalities. I can only liken that to thalidomide in pregnant women. Follow that up again with Liver Fluke and a blasted fox getting my five 12 week old chicks from off the lawn, and traumatising their mother half to death. (she spent hours in the pond to avoid getting caught), and one might wonder why we carry on!’

She ends…

‘Yes, you bet we’re worried, but we can’t allow it to take over our lives. We just take heart that life here, at the moment, goes on in the age old tradition, and we are thankful that at least this year we have some beautiful calves to see bounding and gambolling about, and we will worry when the time comes (and hopefully it won’t). I’ve got enough grey hairs, and F has none, he has pulled all his out over the years!!’

So how will farms and good, caring people like this cope? Beef animal are already making a loss of £139 per animal. Not to mention the heartache caused from tending sick and dying stock. We will loose those very farms and farmers that are trying their best to produce high quality food from healthy, happy, animals whilst caring as best they can for the environment.

midges flying over hanaborough moor 7th february 2008

Bluetongue. Twenty-four different BT strains identified so far each needing a strain-specific vaccine. This disease is expected to become endemic in Britain. There will be no compensation. Vaccination will be the only way of protecting livestock. Our native and indigenous breeds of cattle and sheep will be more susceptible to the disease having never encountered it before.

Bluetongue. The BTV-8 strain is now affecting the Eastern and South-eastern counties of the UK with the surveillance zone having been extended into some parts of Dorset. DEFRA are expecting different strains of the disease to arrive along the South West coast from France this spring and spread northwards.
In the UK midges have not been killed off during the mild winter and are already flying. They travel two kilometres a day in normal weather conditions and much further in strong headwinds. It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out how long it will take to reach Devon.

Bluetongue. It is hoped, according to DEFRA, there will be enough BTV-8 vaccine ready to carry out vaccination in the South East during May. There is no indication of a more comprehensive vaccination programme this year, next year or ever. The costs of developing vaccines for the 24 various strains and for implementing a countrywide vaccination programme will be staggering. Will DEFRA or the government be willing to help with the costs? I’m not so sure.

I’m shit scared and worried. It seems extraordinary to me that some people appear to be acting as if it’s a mild inconvenience. This disease is potentially devastating; especially to an already beleaguered livestock industry. And I don’t know if I have the heart or energy left to cope with a farm of sick and dying animals. This could be the death-knoll for Locks Park Farm.

Twinkling fairies? Or the harbinger of devastation?

I hope you’ve had a good Christmas. We have, time has flown and I’m having difficulty knowing which day of the week it is. Family is still gathering making every day an excuse for celebration. And the realisation it’s New Year’s Eve the day after tomorrow is just dawning on me.

Read the rest of this entry »

Through all this seasonal excitement and disorder there is a constant – the stock – and the twice daily routine, come hell or high water, is as about as grounding as you can get. Read the rest of this entry »

All weekend the firmaments hurled oceans of water at us. The wind howled, shrieked, wailed banshee-like; crashing brutally, tearing viciously. I was as brittle and unstable as spun sugar; as transparent and fragile as old glass. I could at any second splinter into a million tiny fragments and dissolve into a small insignificant stream, disappearing and absorbed by the watery world. Read the rest of this entry »

Five things to do on a rainy weekend.
1. Fluke the calves and young stock 2. Fluke the bull 3. Fluke the lambs
4. Fluke the rams - and for a bit of variety…5. Dehorn a six month old calf

Fasciola hepatica - liver fluke Read the rest of this entry »

I hate fireworks – whilst it seems that the rest of the world is going ‘oooh’ and ‘ahhh’ I would rather be anywhere else, which of course I am. I have no idea where this loathing came from, nothing bad firework-wise has happened to me (I don’t think), and I’m pretty sure I’m not nursing some hidden psychological problem (though others may disagree). Read the rest of this entry »

Words flow when I’m excited, upset or angry. Having a rant or getting nitty-gritty isn’t a problem. But the gentle, dry autumn weather has soothed and calmed, I feel peaceful and relaxed. The words in my head are amorphous, languid and nebulous; hardly entertaining for a punchy, pithy post. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s difficult not to trot out trite, naff, clichéd metaphors about the week’s autumn magnificence.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sheep…
Sheep…I’m writing about sheep.
I’m telling you about harnessing and marking up the tups, sorting out the groups of ewes, colours, counting, feeding, watching …and all those things that help make my lambing easier and less stressful.
Pictures too. I’d taken some interesting ones.
But the silence is white noise in my ears. Read the rest of this entry »

A quick post to let you know that I have a large gathering of the clan happening from today and won’t, I shouldn’t think, have a moment of time to write. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s odd how strangely divorced I feel from the news of the new FMD outbreak in Surrey and all the horror it entails.

I can’t really understand my own reaction. It surprises me. But I don’t think it’s just me. Even the national news is remarkably devoid of hype and those gruesome, unnecessary, pictures of dead or dying livestock. And when I speak about it with anyone involved in farming, there is a telling hesitation before the appropriate expressions and remarks. Read the rest of this entry »

The little family arrived from New Zealand late on Saturday. The rest of the world appeared to have arrived at Heathrow as well, and a weary, exhausted trio walked through the arrival gates nearly three hours after their plane had landed. Read the rest of this entry »

I have three dogs – all bitches at the moment – Skye, Jill and Ness. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday was my day for working in the shop in Exeter. Inevitably I talked with customers about foot and mouth. Read the rest of this entry »

Sheep are not stupid
…or daft
…or thick, dense and unintelligent
…frustrating and exasperating, yes, though not through brainlessness; but because of survival and flock instinct. Read the rest of this entry »

‘Anything I need to know. Any messages?’ I shout-
‘What’s that…can’t hear you?’
‘Messages, any messages I need to know? Anything?’
‘Na…nothing really’
‘Have you heard from Simon’
‘Who?’
‘Simon, Simon the shearer, Simon Cooper?’ Read the rest of this entry »