We see plenty of rainbows.
Sheep wise, 2008, was an odd and very “testing” year. A local crofter was short of pasture for a small flock of Jacob and Shetland sheep, we offered the use of two fields in exchange for two Jacob lambs and for one of our sheep (BaC) to be put to his Jacob tup. All began well, the crofter dropped off 2 bins for feed storage and a supply of dry food and for the first 2-3 weeks he duly turned up to feed his sheep. BaC joined his flock and was duly tupped by a magnificent looking “4 horn” Jacob. BaC would have had about 25% jacob in her genes, her mother having been a 50/50 Jacob Cheviot cross.
Events began to slowly slide downhill when the crofter went to the mart, bought some more Jacobs (already in lamb) and put them straight into the field with his flock — usually, newly acquired sheep are kept apart from the flock as a form of quarantine, in case they bring disease or illness with them. It proved to be a big mistake by the crofter, for one of the sheep developed “red eye” a highly contagious eye disease that results in temporary blindness. We were told of the problem by Big Iain, who it turned out, had taken on the job of feeding the sheep, so the crofter was not even turning up to do that. In total, four sheep showing symptoms, were removed from the field and placed in one of the stables. Medication was ordered from the vet and Ruth spent 2 weeks putting powders and later, creams, in the eyes of the four sheep.
Once the sheep appeared to be recovered, as a precaution, rather then putting the sheep back with the rest of the crofters flock, the four were put into the rear paddock so Ruth could keep a watch. Only a matter of a few days later, Big Iain appeared and informed Ruth that one of the Jacobs had given birth, but the lambs were both dead, not a promising start. A week later, Big Iain appeared again, to say a second Jacob had produced twins and that he was concerned that one of the lambs might have been rejected, it spent more time on its own, well away from the mother. Two days later, Iain was back, now highly worried about the lamb, its mother was pushing it away - would Ruth bottle feed it …
A few days later and Big Iain was back again, he thought another sheep was about to give birth, she was sitting in the middle of the field, he was back at lunchtime, worried, nothing had happened, would Ruth take a look. Ruth duly went along, the sheep was really listless and not actually in the process of even trying to give birth — but something was very wrong. Andrew from next door was passing, he came down to see what we were all doing and declared the sheep had “Twin Lamb Disease” it would need to be taken in fast, but, he didn't think it would last long.. Another new one for Ruth — Twin Lamb Disease is usually brought on by poor feeding, resulting in weakness in the ewe and leading to pneumonia, all the food resources being used by the lambs. The sickly ewe was collected in the landrover and taken into the stable and given an antibiotic injection. The crofter was phoned, he did come down, looked over the stable door and declared it was not Twin Lamb Disease, nothing to do with poor feeding and that Ruth shouldn't have injected the ewe as that would kill the lambs and anyway, the sheep would be dead before too long, so why bother. The sheep did indeed die early the next morning.
“Gladys”. Image below: “Gladys” still prone.
Having raised the issue of feeding with Big Iain, it became clear that the crofter had instructed Iain to feed the sheep on too little, no Beet had been supplied as no troughs had been provided. Annie took 10 troughs to the field along with a few bags of sugar beet pellets and Ruth asked Iain to feed a larger quantity in an effort to stop the problem arising again. However, as usual for us, that was not to be the case. Less than a week later, Iain was back, worried about another sheep, a Shetland, that was showing signs of being listless. Annie wasted no time and went down with the landrover, Ruth checked the sheep, early signs of pneumonia and very listless, the sheep was taken into a stable and given an injection and the crofter called again who came down, looked at the sheep and promptly declared that one would also die, it was an old sheep, so why bother …
The sheep was not named by Ruth, close inspection of the ear tag gave the sheep her name, there was no number, the sheep had the name Gladys on the tag. Gradually, as days went by the sheep apepared to be losing the fight, trying to get her to feed was difficult, Ruth and Annie resorted, in the end, to taking the garden shears out and cutting fresh grass at regular intervals, that eventually got the sheep more interested. It was a long slog, two months of laying prone led to muscle wastage in the legs and the sheep was unable to stand or rise much off the ground. A bale was taken into the stable and 2-3 times a day, Gladys was picked up, draped over the bale and Ruth stretched and flexed each leg. Gladys has since gone on to make an almost 100% recovery and has produced further lambs over the last two years.
Twin lambs with their mother.
Meanwhile, more of the Jacob sheep were giving birth including one of the ewes who had suffered from the “Red Eye”, the ewe managed to give birth by rolling down the slope in the lower half of the back paddock, quite a novelty really. A few days later, the crofter appeared to take all his sheep away, leaving behind the still prone Gladys the Shetland and the Jacob ewe with her two lambs. The two lambs were the “payment” for the pasture and the ewe would be kept as remuneration for the “extra services” in tending the crofters flock.
Not too long after the crofters flock were removed, Ruth started lambing her own flock, the stable had been cleaned out and re-sterlised in preparation, but with Gladys the Shetland still prone there was only one stable remaining for lambing. It was therefore a good thing the Spring was warm and sunny so allowing more lambs to be born outdoors. There were no major problems, thankfully and a good crop of lambs were produced. As ever, the Suffolk cross ewes produced fine, strong lambs. Even the second generation cross ewes produced great lambs, a testimony to their genetics no doubt.
Ruth and Annie had split the flock into two groups, one group being served by “Tofu” the tup and the other by “James” This years crop of lambs from “Tofu” were noticeably stronger than those from “James”, next year would be the last time we would be able to use either tup — “Tofu” because it would be difficult to avoid serving his own offspring and “James”, because of his increasing age. We would therefore need to think about changing the tup(s) after the 2009 lambing.
Great thickets of gorse. Below: “Piglet” fully recovered.
Annie had started a new project in 2007, clearing the land of gorse in an effort to create a central track leading from the barn / house area through to the track that runs from the road to the rail line, dissecting the property in half. Over many tens of years gorse and “whin” bushes have grown at such a rate this area has been inaccessible. At first, Annie began clearing using the chainsaw, cutting away at the bushes — until she encountered metal, in the shape of an old, fallen down and long forgotten fence.
More discoveries followed, old cast aside machinery, empty drums and the blade of a spade, these “finds” led Annie to eventually use a handsaw, a far more labour intensive effort, but a much safer one. It took some considerable effort to clear the gorse along the length of the land, once cleared, Annie commenced a fencing project, to create rough pasture field areas.
Erecting the fence was rather more difficult than expected, the ground was not only hard packed, but the number of large stones encountered meant each post took longer to dig in. Although begun in 2008, it took into 2009 for the entire back rough pasture area to be solidly enclosed.
Not too long after the incident where we managed to get Gladys the Shetland back on her feet, “Piglet”, the last female lamb to be born to “Mucky Bottom”, found a discarded battery among gorse bushes in one field, licked it and fell seriously ill. She was brought to the stable and, like Gladys, was slowly nursed back to health.
That process was a two month long effort, but eventually, the sheep came good. She is seen in the photo, taken just after shearing.
Irresponsible Rail Track
Neighbour “Big Iain” stands on the damaged track. Below: The repaired track.
A track bisects our croft, from the road to the rail line, allowing access to Big Iains croft on the far side of the rail track. Over the years we have been here, Rail Track, the company responsible for the maintenance of the rail line has used the track to access the line, prior to this year, with no major problems. A letter was received from Rail Track, indicating that major bush cutting works would be carried out along the length of the rail line and that most of the owrk would occur during the night. These works in themselves should have been no problem to the croft. It was with some concern however, Ruth and Annie began to notice the increase in litter — discarded food wrappers, soft drinks cans and wrappers.
What really caused issues was the arrival of a very angry Big Iain, who reported that the track was now being dug up by the passage of heavy vehicles. Rail Track was using the farm track to access the rail line every night, regardless of where on the line they were working, he also informed us, the area of unfenced rough pasture was being used as the “car park”. Ruth and Annie went along to investigate and were, frankly, shocked. More discarded litter, human faeces and toliet paper, large areas of the rough pasture had been ploughed up by vehicles and the track itself had deep ruts in it. Empty soft drinks cans were also found discarded on the opposite side of the track — tossed out of a vehicle and landing in a field occupied by sheep. Sheep are inquisitive, anything new in a field and they will investigate. A day or so later, “Pipsqueak” lay dead in the field, she had choked on something — possible a discarded ring pull.
Phone calls to Rail Track eventually led to someone inspecting the track and finally sending a team round to fix the issue. Ruth and Annie were told there would be no further littering or damage, Rail Track was keen to work with its “neighbours”. Yes, the track was repaired, though drainage of surface water later became an issue that Annie eventually had to try to solve with the addition of “offlets” to drain away the water.
One of the problems with companies that grow over large — they never mean what they say and sadly, over the last couple of years, that has proved to be the case with Rail Track as you will see.
The area along from the barn that originally sloped sharply downhill was made level by building up the slope with stones long discarded from the fields and covered in top soil that had been heaped by Ronnie Fraser when he cleared the site for the barn. This would now become the area for the poly tunnel to be erected. Creating this level ground took a Summer of effort and thought. The ground needed to remain level and stable, so has been left for a year or so, allowing for settlement.
Rural Skills Initiative
Students from Dornoch Academy construct a sheep shelter and below, a chicken shed.
In 2008/2009, the croft became part of the Rural Skills project — where participating schools send groups of students out for one morning a week to learn skills relating to a rural life, participating organisations include a local estate, the forestry commission, garden centre, a croft and farm. Given that Ruth started with sheep only a matter of 7 years or so ago, she felt she was only one step ahead of some of the students who come to the croft and, given those same students spend time with a very experienced sheep farmer, she took a different approach. Rather than look purely at working with sheep, she looks at the “science” behind the land and, along with Annie offers more practical skills, such as building trades.
The students have undertaken some interesting projects, many of which have been extremely useful for the croft. Since the sheepshelter was constructed it has been in almost constant use. Another project undertaken was the construction of a chicken shed, while we currently have no chickens, it will eventually be used. This project was extremely successful and was repeated the following year, this time, for the school, who now have a smart chicken shed, complete with chickens and produce their own eggs.
Another loss that occurred, was the maiming of the two male Sebastopol geese we have had for a number of years. One morning we found both of them covered with blood and one had a snapped beak, making it impossible for the bird to eat, so sadly, Ruth had to take it to the vet to be put to sleep. It was thought the birds had fought each other. After a number of weeks, Annie decided to obtain a new Goose to keep the remaining male happy and she returned home with a female Ebden goose, both birds are seen together in the photo. About three days after this photo was taken, the female was found sitting in the middle of the pond and the headless carcass of the male further along the front garden area. The culprit — the fox. The two males had not fought each other, but had defended each other against a fox attack and the remaining male had defended the female against the same fox. This left us with the one remaining lone female goose and we were back to square one.
“Tiffany”
Our last loss occurred in November 2010 and we had to say goodbye to “Tiffy” the older Australian Shepherd. Her slide downhill was seemingly rapid, the vet took biopsies from a lump that had formed, “Tiffy” had a rapid spreading cancer for which there was no treatment. “Tiffy” had been Annie's constant companion since we moved here and the loss has been keenly felt. “Tiffy” was almost 13 years old, we hope she had a good life while she was with us. Colm the vet and Jodie a veterinary nurse from the practice, came out to the house to put “Tiffy” to sleep, afterwards, we let the two remaining dogs, “Elliott” and “Mac”, see the body, hoping they might somehow understand that “Tiffy” had gone.
That brings you up-to-date with the main highlights for 2008-2010. Only one major issue has not been covered here, so do please do read the item on “Pumas” that appears in the Observation topic area.