News

19 February

Today at 6 o'clock my last ewe of the first batch lambed. A big and healthy boy. His mother does boys well and her latest offspring promises to be another good one. Apart from three lambs which were born dead, with classic signs of the Schmallenberg effect all went very well with no other losses. In our area vets report between 2 and 40% losses - and yet I only heard from one other pedigree breeder in Suffolk that he had several cases. I am certain that there are many more out there but they will stay unreported because people fear for the reputation of their flocks. Even if SBV was notifiable it would stay unreported in many cases. I find it frustrating to see so much ignorance and mis-information about SBV. 

During the week of lambing I had the pleasure of meeting Charlotte, a seventeen year old who wants to become a vet. Her four days with us hopefully helped her to gain a little knowledge of sheep farming and having the chance to learn how to deliver a lamb really left her with a keen determination to go to one of the Veterinary Colleges. 

For the fourth year running Peter from Cumbria came down to lamb the first batch of ewes. My back and general strength are not what they used to be and I much prefer to leave lambing to somone young and able. It does help when you find an assistant who also likes your type of sheep. Peter always goes through my ewelambs - inevitably finding the best and handing me a small wish list.

There is of course the prospect of SBV staying around this year and for some this probably hasn't quite sunk in yet. This is different to the Bluetongue virus, which was well-known and therfore and a suitable vaccine could be made reasonably quickly. With the hitherto unknown Schmallenberg virus work has to start from scratch. I would recommend to read the document in this link. It may be a bit technical but it does explain the basics very well.

http://www.fli.bund.de/fileadmin/dam_uploads/tierseuchen/Schmallenberg_Virus/Schmallenberg-Virus-Factsheet-20120215-en.pdf

 

 

 

Below the first pictures of some lambs, all by Reefer. (See his photo on the Gallery page)