I was helping out with the lambing the seasons at John's farm, which is just down the road from me.
This was an AMAZING experience, and I can honestly say this is the BEST work experience I have done so far.
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| Lambs in the field in front of my house. |
I did 3 weekends and a few days after school.
I spent the whole day at the farm, and they day began with filling up all the water buckets in the barn, and giving out the feed the cade lambs. I made up the lamb's milk with formula and hot water, and took a big bucket of it down to the barn along with two baby bottles. The lambs were adorable, I'd have some fighting at me to get to the bottle and others that couldn't get through, so I had to make sure every one had been fed. It surprised me how they all had different personalities, despite being such herd animals.
Once everyone had been fed I walked round all the fields to check whether any of the ewes were behaving strangely, and if so which ones so that I could let John know that a ewe was lambing. If I found any that had lambed overnight we took the quad bike and trailer round to herd them up and take them into the barn. (at this farm the ewes lived out until they had lambs, rather than just staying in once it was lambing season)
If a ewe was having trouble, then the fun began. I put me hand inside the sheep (I won't go into detail as you wither know or don't want to what this is like), and pulled the lambs out. This was easily the most satisfying part of the job, as I felt so proud when I saw the lambs that I'D delivered have their first drink or take their first steps.
Only twice did a see dead lambs, one that had died overnight, and one that had been dead a while in the womb and came out rotten. The rotten lamb was heartbreaking, as the poor ewe kept baaing around it, waiting for it to get up, and as it was rotten we couldn't replace it with a lamb from a triplet.
When the amount of lambs being born started to slow down, in the gaps we sorted potatoes.
I got homemade pudding every day at the farmhouse, which was delicious.
At the end of the day I got on my bike and went home.
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| Lambs aged approx. 6 weeks |
Being at the farm is another experience that has made me even more certain that I would not be satisfied being in a small animal practice. I can't wait to go back next spring!
