Tupping time

Hi, it is 'tupping' time here!! Yes, there have been floods all over the country, snow and ice...but we are focused on the activities of our male sheep. Soem people call them rams but we call them tups. Many tups have already been on the job (you can tell by the number of ewes in the fields with dye rubbed on their backs fron the tup's harness) but because we like to lamb relatively late, in May, when the weather is (supposed to be) milder and the ewes can lamb outside, then the tups go in about now (5 months gestation for sheep)
We have a Herdwick tup called Colin who is very handsome.

Here, the girls are waiting for him to get into the field... !

and...he goes right to it!! Good lad..

He is registered, which makes him more valuable) and for this there are certain criteria, as Jonathan found out when he took him to see if he was up to being registered. Lets just say that at one point, it involved feeling Colins testicles (as well as other more sensible (?) things things like looking at the colour of his legs) Mm..  so Colin goes in with the Herdwick ewes for a month and hopefully in May we will have some healthy lambs. We had 2 Hampshire Down tups called Ant and Dec (Morgan's idea) and these were for the 'Mule' sheep who are alresdy cross bred. The idea is to put a chunky ram (like Suffolk, Texel or Hampshire) to get big lambs for meat, but breeds like Herdwick are kept pure and you'r always trying to imptove the stock. So we have 34 Herdwick ewes (any more and we would need anothe tup) and  just 6 mules (all ex pet lambs that we didn't want to part with!! - some farmers we are!!?) - and this year, because we sold Ant and Dec, they are being served by a neighbours shearling tup we have borrowed, a Suffolk, to see if he can do the business! Morgan has called him Bart - he is so sweet with his black face and ears... Think we would like to breed Suffolks at some point...

Not a great photo. sorry Bart. Will do some more..

So it all gets a bit complicated - tups are normally kept on their own (and this year we have 5 tup lambs as well as Colin and Bart) and the ewes all together but now everyone is split up - Colin and Herdwicks in one field,  Bart and Mules in another,  little ewe lambs who are not breeding in another paddock and tup lambs who will be going for meat (another story) in a cosy stable . We used to have Angora goats and that was another space needed but they have gone now.. Luckily we have done lots of fencing to create more paddocks since we came here.. (well Jonathan has!)
The ewes bottoms have been clipped in preparation (think waxing?!) I am excited because our pet lambs Miranda and Lou Lou (Morgan again)  from 2 years ago are able to get in lamb now, so lets see what they ptoduce and what sort of mums thsy will be..They are still friendly - during this years lambing, when I went into the field to 'top up' a lamb with milk,  they decided they remembered the bottle and wantted a go too! (not for long)

I STARTED WRITING THIS WEEKS AGO!! THE XMAS MONSTER HAS TAKEN OVER..
Will be more reliable next year I hope..

 Here are some photos of the very friendly tup lambs in the valley at the moment (sometimes inside when the weather is bad)

Hiding under Beth's wendy house..

Is it wrong to say that I LOVE SHEEP??

If I don't get back on this in the next week, wishing everyone a wonderful Solstice (we are having an acoustic fire Gathering here, to celebrate the beginning of a positive shift in consciousness we hope) and a happy RELAXED christmastime..
Sally..

(and just to clarify, though it has Jonathan's name on it - a blip we haven't sorted yet) these blogs are written by me!