The Cambridge Smallholding: Spring and more baby things!

We spent a wonderful Saturday putting in our hours at Hempsal's Community farm
So many exciting things happened. First of all I helped move 'number 99', the sheep who had given birth last week, into a field with better grazing- together with her lamb of course! 99 is quite skittish but we carried her lamb in front of her and she followed along the path and into the next field, pretty much keeping nose-contact with her lamb the entire time.

Mother and week-old ewe lamb

I then started trying to assemble an old greenhouse which had been donated to the farm, which basically meant standing helplessly in front of a pile of disassembled parts. Ian went over to the veg patch and starting turning over several root beds for planting. Suddenly one of the other...helpers?farmers? (I'm not sure what we're called), noticed that one of the sheep was nuzzling a new lamb! Almost immediately a second, much smaller, lamb appeared. We all gathered round the fence to watch and take pictures, people were telephoned to let them know of the new arrival and names were discussed- pretty much your standard birth, apart from the field. When both kids were able to stand up, they were taken across the field to a ready-made pen to be out of the wind. Ben (head farmer) sealed off the umbilical cords with a plastic sandwich clip and sprayed the area with Iodine, (the umbilical cord is a major route of infection into a newborn lamb). This also allowed him to declare both lambs to have 'lady parts'.