Well, Wandsy the ram has been given the green light to start romancing the ladies again here at Bally. After the best part of a year in solitary confinement in order to recover strength and refill the ball bag after last year’s exertions (which resulted in forty-seven lambs, which by sheep standards is pretty good going) he has been disappearing off into the darkness every evening with his bunch of roses and bottle of champers and re- appearing every morning with a satisfied look on his face leaving a harem of happy ladies in his wake…this fella is impressive…the Julio Iglesias of the soft furnishings world.
You would think that the whole process of lambing in Ireland is quite simple, but as I am gradually realising, in farming there are a lot more to these things than first meets the eye. Wandsworth wears a harness which positions a coloured marker on the underside of his belly. Whilst “entertaining” the pretty lady this marker leaves a coloured reminder of when this particular romance took place on her back. After seventeen days the colour of the marker is changed and again after another seventeen days. Depending on the number of different coloured markings and when they appear this coding system tells the shepherd.

a) Whether the individual ewes will take (fall pregnant) easily…if they do they will be kept for the next years lambing in Ireland.
b) Whether Julio’s performance is up to standard.
c) When the ewe falls pregnant and therefore when she will give birth.

A downside with lambing in Ireland is a pretty disgusting condition has been affecting some of the sheep over the last few weeks. A few started acting strangely in the field (straining their heads to turn round all the time and rubbing their selves on the wire fences more than usual). Alison’s uncle rounded them up and put them in the pen to have a closer look and found that some of them were infested with maggots. Apparently this is a common thing but looks pretty revolting. The maggots burrow down into the wool of the animal and feed on the skin. If not treated this will eventually kill the sheep…not a nice way to go! We treated the infected sheep with jeyes fluid (seems to be a sort of sheep cure all when lambing in Ireland) and this seems to have solved the problem.