Musings of a shepherd.

A Calm and Simple Life!!! If only.

This is in response to a comment made on my last blog by alfred booth, wanbli ska I hope it was tongue in cheek but just in case it wasn't I thought I would give you a first insight into what it's like to be a Shepherd.

At the moment we have just 65 ewes and no lambs. So far this year we have had them shorn, this takes four hours of hard labour. Each ewe has to be turned on her back and presented to the shearer he doesn't move so the sheep have to brought to him. Each ewe weighs about 70/80 kgs. My husband and I do this by ourselves. The night before the shearer comes we have to get the ewes into our barn and this is not always easy as they tend to have minds of their own and it took us several hours before they were safely tucked up for the night!!

Wormed all sheep twice, again all have to be got into the building.
Feet trimmed once although we have recently had to trim some feet again. This is done in the sheep turner but we still have to manhandle the ewe into the turner.
This Summer we have had a drought so we have been very short of grazing. This meant we were having to feed hay in August. And filling their water troughs every day. And the sheep escaped a few times as they tried to find some grass. So fencing on more than one occasion.

Hay making in June we make small bales which are easier to handle especially for me but bringing them in and stacking them is really hard work. And never believe anyone who talks about the fun of frolicking in the hay it scratches like hell !!!! And I suffer from Hay fever but that's another story.

I think I have perhaps mentionned the lovely October we have been experiencing but even that has caused us problems with the sheep. We have had 6 ewes with Fly strike i.e. maggots that burrow into their flesh and literally eat them alive, if not caught early the ewe will die an awful death. Luckily we spotted all ours quickly and they all fine now, but this is only because we check them carefully every day. This takes time!!

And with any animals they cannot be left, so no spur of the minute trips away for us. And I am responsible for their well-being, only yesterday we bought two of the ewes down to a home paddock as they have been losing weight. I am not sure what the problem is yet but they will stay close at hound while I keep an eye on them.

Then of course there is the work on maintaining the fields in good condition, rolling, harrowing, topping to name but a few jobs.

These are all the easy jobs because I haven't mentionned LAMBING!!!!!

I could use a lot of words to describe being a Shepherd but CALM & SIMPLE aren't amongst them.

What I can say is that I wouldn't have missed the last 15 years for anything, and we are only retiring from sheep to give us more freedom. We are not stopping working entirely.

Well I feel much better for getting that off my chest. My next blog will be about Pigs before sharing some of my sheep memories.