They're off!

Following my previous post, I phoned another butcher in Rhosllanerchrugog and they had space for all four boys in two weeks time! Eeek! They are lots cheaper though, and were very helpful answering all my newbie questions. It does now mean that I am in a bit of a rush making sure that I have all the documentation (there's an awful lot of administration involved in sheep-keeping unfortunately!) in place, we still need to beg borrow or steal a trailer from somewhere and we need to pre-sell our carcasses so that they can be delivered immediately. Luckily they've all been snapped up very quickly - we only really have room for one lamb in our freezer so we've offloaded the other three in half-lamb bundles.

This dreadful weather we've been having hasn't been very good for the poor sheep. They can handle any amount of cold but this continuous rain has just been miserable for them. The fields are completely saturated and extremely slippery as a result. Hopefully the weather will turn very cold soon, and give the fields a chance to dry out a bit.

Speaking of miserable, the poor children have had it very rough these past few weeks. Ellie has been plagued with ear infections, which then culminated in her ear-drum bursting :(  It's made quite a big hole in her ear-drum and she's really struggling to hear now. I'm hoping she'll be offered another set of grommets to help her. She had some put in just before her third birthday as she'd struggled pretty much from birth with her ears. Her speech was delayed and so they eventually put some in and it made the world of difference - no more bursting ear drums, no more pain and of course she was finally able to hear properly. Her speech caught up really quickly too. Now she's at school, her hearing loss is going to be a real hindrance to her so I hope she gets on the waiting list soon!
Jasper is also suffering badly with an ear infection and is on antibiotics so hopefully that will clear up soon.

Tabs has had her pre-school immunisations and she was very brave, poor poppet. She's like a little twig and when the second of the two needles went in she really screamed (causing Ellie to burst into tears in sympathy!). It's left a really bad bruise on her arm so it must have really hurt :(

Hamlet time...

It's very almost time for our ram lambs to take their trip to 'the seaside' (wink, wink). I've been struggling to find a local abattoir slaughterhouse 'beach' to take them to but I think I may now have found one. It's such a shame that so many have had to close because of all the red tape and legislation. It means much longer journeys, more stress and quite often a much less personal service because mostly it's the bigger, more commercial ones that have been able to remain open. Our nearest one is an hour away now and, as this is our first year of sheep husbandry, I've been a little late in setting the wheels in motion. It seems that our sheep will not be able to be 'attended to' until January. I guess that means no roast lamb for Christmas dinner - so the boys can put their Hamlet cigars away (for now).

If you are not in the UK, and not of a certain age, then the Hamlet reference will make no sense to you at all, so here's a link to the YouTube video of the 1989 Hamlet cigar advert:

Hamlet Cigars - Christmas turkey ad

On the plus side,as we are having to wait a little longer before enjoying the rewards, it means we will get more meat for our money. Zwartbles sheep are a large breed and not very inclined to running to fat. This means that the longer we leave them, the more meat - and not fat - we will gain.  The breeders we bought them from just told us that one of their lambs weighed in at over 38kgs (it's usually more like 23 kgs!) at the butcher's. Good news indeed, and even more so for those family and friends that have requested a half-lamb!

I think we deserve some reward for having to rescue one or more of the boys from the fence (they just don't seem to realise that their heads shouldn't go through the mesh) almost daily since we got them! Dave has been the worst offender - I don't think he's the brightest of sheep! Someone once told me that it is the aim of every sheep to meet its Maker as soon as possible and it is the aim of every shepherd to delay this for as long as possible!

Here's a quick pic of the sheep, as I don't think I've actually put one up yet :)

The boys are the ones closest to the camera. That's Dave, centre back, nuzzling Suzy through the gate. Ellie came down to the field with me because she wanted to make a 'sheep book' for Show and Tell at school. Naturally she wanted to pose with the sheep for one of the photos!