Trading in the spirit of self-sufficiency

If the ideal of no money changing hands be true, then our most recent trade came up trumps - the tired old Citroen AX that made it from Chamonix that has since been languishing under the car port was exchanged for 3 lambs. The trailer that brought them towed the AX away.   The little 4x4 runabout now has a new loving home but we are happy with our 2 ram lambs and one more ewe.

We are now up to 8 lambs and had our first experience of flipping them to find out if they are boys or girls and to check their hooves. They were corralled into the shelter (in truth they were bribed with maize) and we stopped and looked at each other asking how were going to actually catch them? Calling them and finger clicking certainly didn't work. Solution - Al tackled the nearest one from behind by grabbing its fleece and dragging it onto its bottom.  This technique seems to work well but it is best to grab them on their rumps as it hurts them less.   The lamb (all 20+ kg) surrendered to an inspection (how did Bee get that job?!) and was let back out into the field. The poor rams got marked with a blast of building-site spray paint  - not sure they are too pleased with their new orange-neck look. Now they all just need a good dagging (bottom trim) and pedicure and they will look beautiful!

The only real dilemma we face now is whether to leave one or both ram lambs with the ewes all the time.  With large sheep farms, the rams are kept seperate from the ewes and only introduced for a set period in order to reduce the spread of the lambing period and to time lambing with the best flush of spring grass whereas in SW France, we get strong grass growing in Spring and Autumn (and almost none in mid summer as it is too dry).  We would be pleased if the ram lambs do their business in the spring to time the lambing with the Autumn grass.  Once their work is done, the rams will be dispatched to the freezer.

Big learning curve but great fun!