I have now come to University following being at home doing online lectures, activities on zoom etc.  Our internet at home is excellent as we have a rural broadband (B4RN) with fibre directly into our home with speeds upto 980mbs!  My placement within hospital has now started so I only helped out with lambing for a few days.   

The sheep were scanned just after Christmas with a good lambing percentage and again quite a few triplets are due! 

The first lamb arrived the other week.  Most of the early lambing sheep are Suffolks, which were put to the Charollais Beltex Tup, so they are now known as  'crossed' lambs.   They produce stocky solid lambs which are ideal for meat production.  

Around 3 weeks ago we vaccinated all the sheep with their pre-lambing booster so that they pass on immunity to their lambs; this is for prevention of Pasturella pneumonia and Clostridial Diseases.  As they are reared inside for a few weeks we have to be careful with cleanliness to prevent diseases, most importantly is making sure the newborn lambs get their mothers colostrum in the first few hours of arriving as it contains so many antibodies and is high in nutrients/energy boost.  If the sheep has three lambs we use a manufactured colostrum on them too and usually feed it through a bottle or a stomach tube if the lamb is weaker. We often milk the sheeps colostrum into a small jug and feed that way too.   It is important to spray the lambs navel with strong iodine as it disinfects it, and also dehydrates which prevents infection from getting in.