On the farm in June.

June is a busy month on the farm,we are busy working with the sheep.
Today has been a beautiful day , a day to sunbathe perhaps but not for the hard workers here. We have been dosing lambs. This is a medicinal dose to remove any worms they may have picked up from the grass. Each lamb is given a set amount of wormer, this is kept in a large plastic container . The farmer then places the nozzle attached to the container in the lambs' mouth and squeezes the tube and so the lamb is given the correct amount of medicine. The dose is calculated by the animals' weight. With hundreds of lambs to dose this work will last a while.

Later in the month as long as the weather is still warm we will start shearing the ewes. We need warm weather as tthe heat helps the fleeces to rise a little from the ewe's body and makes it easier to shear. My husband usually shears all the ewes and my daughter and myself 'wrap' the fleeces. 'Wrapping' is a particular way the fleeces are rolled; the inside of the fleece(the part next to the body) is rolled inside to help to keep the wool clean. Any muddy or dirty fleece is removed before wrapping. They are then stored in large sacks and later in the year they are transported to wool merchants and eventually made into clothing or carpets, depending on the quality of the fleece.


With 500 ewes to shear it is a very tiring and time consuming job!

Comments

Anonymous said…
I love your farm stories, photos, and, now, videos! This city gal loves traveling someplace new :)
Margot said…
I love this post about your sheep. I used to spin and thought I knew all about wool but I didn't know about the wool rising. How interesting. I can see that you have a very busy time right now.
Jenny Girl said…
Oh they are so cute! Thanks for transporting me to the country for a few moments.
Do you spin or knit any of your wool? Or just sell all your fleece at market?

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