After quite a few sleepless nights and some tense moments, most of our sheep have now given birth to their lambs, and we are catching up on our sleep.

Many of our lambs are born as singles, or twins, however we do get a few sets of triplets, which isn’t ideal. Sheep only have two teats, so when there are three lambs one always gets pushed out and it’s usually the smallest one. We like to foster such lambs onto a sheep that has either lost her lambs or has just had one and so has milk to spare. Our sheep are great mothers but are rather particular and will usually only let their own lambs suckle which can make fostering difficult. We have to have a few tricks up our sleeves to convince the sheep to take on the new lamb!

A sunny afternoon is the ideal chance to let them all out into the field for some fresh grass and chance for the lambs to run around as only lambs can. They form little gangs to have races up and down the field, much to the consternation of their mothers who are very protective and like to keep them close by.

Watching the lambs racing about in the sunshine makes you feel that spring may just be around the corner, or at least we hope so!