The weather on Skye is stunning, lots of snow and frost this winter, few gales but very low temps. The word is the midgies are going to be few and far between because of the low temp. We live in hope, My first visitors of the season were here last week and they loved it,  clear blue sky and very starey nights. Only 2 weeks left till lambing if you would like to see lambs being born then please hurry  and book in now,

I've taken the mothering pens down today and have made a big pen with all of them together, the lambs love the extra space and when I feed the ewes the lambs just go besurk! !! so much more space for them.Its better for the sheep too, they can wonder about alot more and now they have that special bond between them, they will mix in and when the mum calls her own lambs will go to her for a feed, they soon learn if they pick the wrong udder they will get a thump from that ewe.Theres something very special about seeing young lambs in January.

Big bertha's 2 lambs are suckling themselves now,after a sleepless night  feeding the lambs evert 3 hours, but it paid off and finally they are managing themselves .4pm, gimmer lambed on her own, plenty of milk, a ewe lamb, both fine.2.30am Last of the early lambers lambed ,2 black, pure suffolk ewe lambs, nice size, suckled them and there in the mothering pens now.

Scan Man came today, he travels over from New Zealand every year and travels the UK scanning sheep.What a result.10 singles, 27 sets of twins and 5 sets of triplets, thats alot of lambs. I'm going to be very busy,If you would like to join in at lambing time please book as soon as possible, See what we can offer.

Big Bertha; She was so big she could hardly walk,; no wonder she has given birth to twin tup lambs tonight, they are huge, she was in trouble with just the head coming on the first lamb, Pleased I was there to help or I would have lost the lambs and possibly the mother too.Her milk is still like wax so I gave her lambs colostrum taken from another ewe last year and frozen for such an occasion.One lamb is a good feeder the other isn't but they both had enough to get them started, this milk is very important and very important that they get it soon after birth. I will go back to check them at 3am, 4 hours after they were fed the last time, I'll check her udder and see if her milk has come down yet and check to see the lambs have suckled her. If this hasn't happened then I'll mix some powdered milk and feed then from the bottle until her milk does appear.It happens sometimes and usually the milk comes in a few hours after the lambs are born. Looks like it could be a long night.

No more lambs today, but the gridstone ewe prolapsed last night, a little bit pressure from unborn lambs can do this or simply I'm feeding them too much?I have put a harness onto her to help with problem, she will go on to a full term pregnancy.My son Keith and grandson Tristan came over tonight with 70 bales of hay, after we unloaded the trailer we moved the ewe and lamb into a larger area to let them have more space, they are well bonded now, and will enjoy the space for the lamb to play until she is joined with some playmates in a day or too. I also put her ring onto her tail, this will eventually cause the tail to drop off below the ring, it doest bother the lambs as long as its done when they are young, the reason for doing it is to stop the tail from growing too long that it would trail on the ground picking up all kinds of germs.This will be a very slow lambing as there are only 5 more ewes left over the next 9 days ( I think 2 of these gimmers may not be due until march?) unlike the march lambing when there are more ewes due to lamb. As far as I know this lamb is the first on Skye. Last year we had the last lamb of the year and the first of 2009.

The first lamb arrived this morning right on time, 20th  January, a ewe lamb born to a gimmer, which means its a girl and it was born to a first time mother, both are fine, nice strong lamb,suffolk mother and cheviot father, white with a black spot on its back, and browm tips on her ears.Forunetly our snow is gone and the temp is up which is good for the lambs,although they will stay inside until April.Will keep you posted as they lamb. don't forget if you would like to come and stay in the cottage in March to see the main lambing please go to whats on offer for more details.

It started snowing on Skye on the 19th of December. Like the rest of the country very beautiful if you don't have to be anywhere,All my sheep are inside now till they lamb.The first 5 are due on January the 20th, so from then there will always be lambs to see and hold, there ever so soft and cuddly and don't forget you have the chance of hands on lambing time starting the 20th of MARCH. fOR MORE DETAILS SEE MY wHATS on PAGE.