International Women’s Day – March 8th.

 

We were scratching our heads to think about how we could contribute to International Women’s  Day  – but little did we know the animals had it all sorted .

Today was the first due date for our 10 Hampshire Down ewes who have been tucked up in the barn for the last week out of the squally, windy wet, cold spring weather getting ready to deliver their lambs. Right on cue and not before, the morning of the 8th our first ewe produced a big fat healthy lamb – and it was a girl! One up for International Women’s Day! That left us happy enough with our contribution, however the sheep had other ideas.

Later in the morning we had a visit from  Alison and Kyle from The Harbour Schools, Portsmouth who were able to see our latest arrival. As they drove out of the gate at the end of their visit and I went back to close up the barn another ewe went into labour and delivered a healthy but smaller lamb and what do you know – another female! Two for International Women’s Day, But this ewe wasn’t finished yet and within the next hour or so she delivered two more lambs – all healthy, good size and also females! So  not only is this our first ever successfully born triplets on the farm they are all remarkably female!

That evening as Perry and I went down to check on everybody a third ewe delivered a single lamb just as we arrived and, yes, you guessed it – another female! So here’s to International Women’s Day – women’s power down in Our Back Garden .  3 wonderful ladies delivering 5 healthy girls.

Great also to add that our ewe with triplets has confidently taken on all 3 of her baby girls feeding them all happily. Sometimes it’s necessary to take away one of the lambs and find a foster mum or hand feed as feeding three can be too much for one ewe but not in this case.