Category: Meet the Animals

Livestock, Meet the Animals, wool, Working the land

All a huge learning curve

Ellie

So we have fly strike here again!! Poor Cherry and now her dad, Rambo!!

She was a feisty baby yesterday and was more awkward to handle, he, once we managed to lie him down seemed to accept his fate and enjoy the relief provided!!

But once again we have multicoloured predyed sheep in the fields! Though I am pleased to report Cheery’s fleece had started to grow back beautifully on the patches that had become utterly bald after her first round of strike!!

What have we learned:

  • Crovect, crovect and crovect!! Prevention is better than cure
  • Spot on is great as a cure
  • Battles summer fly cream is brilliant
  • Purple spray for any wounds
  • Don’t be afraid to cut more fleece than you think is necessary
  • Trim all the fleece as short as poss and a good pair of scissors beats hand shears for ease of working with jumpy babies!!
  • Washing up liquid, water and smidge of hibiscrub is great for washing out the maggots they almost need to surface for air!
  • Don’t forget the comb!!
  • and gloves 🤢
  • Take the time to get to know all your animals it’s easier to spot any issues (Both sheep seemed fine the previous day checks but heads hung low the following morning and then a bit of observation and itching spotted- no signs on the outer fleece) Sheep really like to hide their issues well!!

Sheep are amazing at hiding some awful issues as we learned from lambing this year! But we have learned an awful lot this year and things are already in the diary to do for next year to get on top of things early!!

However I do wonder if the different fleece of Rambo (which Cheery and A’tuin have inherited) is more prone to flystrike in our weather here in west Wales! Those that have the more Llanwenog style fleece seem to have faired better!! Llanwenog obviously being a super local breed (Any thoughts here gratefully appreciated!)

Anyway after a super hard day removing maggots from sheep we had a welcome beach picnic for dinner and a dip in the sea!!

Meet the Animals

Sheep Sunday, and then we got a Ram!

Ellie

So we have decided the best way of expanding our flock is to start lambing. So the hunt for a ram began!

We initially though borrowing one would be our best chance, but quickly realised a lot of people keep a closed flock for many many reasons.

So we sat down and thought about lots of different sheep breeds that we know of locally…

Then I saw them!

Kerry Hill and Valais cross ram lambs!!!

We went up to visit them and after a squish of the fleeces and a look at their little faces we chose one to collect the following day!!

When we got him he was five months old, so he is now 8 months old and has grown a LOT! He is now getting almost as big as Lamb Chops!

If not as chunky!

His horns are growing in and whilst we wonder if he will be up to the job at the end of September… this year, he most definitely will for next year!!

So next year, his first shearing…. Do I add his wool to our current blend or do I save his fleece for hand spinning…. ????

Meet the Animals

Sheep Sunday – four more!!

Ellie

A friend from a smallholding near to us here finally sold her property for a BIG move. She had to down size her animal collection. Most of her sheep went to market but a few, her pets, remained. She made the incredibly hard decision that she couldn’t take them with her. So we said that we would take them on! Initially three, but as Coal still had a lamb at foot we ended up with four!

Hairy legs

Coal, who was originally blackie but we thought she looked more like she had rolled in coal dust! Indie (if you ask the eldest she is actually called Indoraptor) and Lamb Chops a big chunky wether.

A wether is a boy sheep who has been neutered.

They arrived one cold evening in December 2020 while my friend was deep in the final throes of moving!

And they joined the flock with gusto! I think it helped that the three witches were some of the lambs from the flock from the previous year, and I think we reunited at least one mother and daughter!

They have upped our numbers of callable sheep, at first it was just Hairy Legs, but now Coal and Lamb Chops are readily available as long as a bucket is rattled!

Indie follows Coal every where so that makes her easier to catch too!!

All four of these are Llanwenog, which is fast proving my favourite yarn to work with!!

If you are interested in knitting with some of the yarn spun up from their beautiful fleeces then head over to our Etsy shop!

animals, Livestock, Meet the Animals, yarn

Sheepy Sunday

Ellie

So after the 3 witches we acquired Wolfie!

She is a welsh white type sheep and was a bottle lamb that one of my neighbour’s wives acquired to raise.

We acquired her when she had transitioned into the neighbour’s garden and was spending more time munching flower beds and pooping on the front doorstep than cutting the grass! Particularly the pooping on the front door step!

We got her about Christmas time and popped her into the field with our guys and she looked at the other sheep as if to say what are these things…. and why why why are you leaving me with them! I think she would have followed us to the house and come in through the front door if she was allowed!

She is a lovely little sheep and is always at the gate after some sheep nuts and a fuss, as long as she has heard us coming. Once in a while we make it into the field before she spots us and then the little leaps and gambols she does are just adorable.

She has the most beautiful thick fleece too!!

Wolfie’s wool is blended into the Rustic ranges of wool we have in our Etsy shop here!

Livestock, Meet the Animals, yarn

Sheepy Sunday

Ellie

So we have done Wanda’s Story and Baarbara’s Story….

Here is the story of the three witches!!

Basically we swapped three sheep for some large bales of haylage the summer after we had Wanda and Babs!

Not a hugely exciting story, but we ended up with Garlick, Og and Weatherwax, which for the literary savvy among you will tell you I like reading the Terry Pratchett books!!

These three are all Llanwennog sheep and James cannot tell the difference between most of our Llanwennogs!

So in this picture we have Weatherwax, who is the biggest of the three up front to the left, Og in the middle front, she is easily recognisable as she tore out one of her tags early on and has a funny little left ear. Garlick is getting increasingly difficult to spot as she and a more recent acquisition are remarkably similar now the recent acquisition is growing up!! But she has a petite slim face and is the smaller of the three witches!

So our flock grew from 2 to 5! The hope was that these three would be relatively tame and join Wanda, but no they joined the suspicious Baarbara and hung round at the back, not coming close enough to hand feed but always within range of thrown nuts!!

They are hard to catch and a bit wild, but this has provided us with entertainment, in he form of Weatherwax diving under James when he was trying to catch her, her boosting him up and him effectively riding her as she ran round the pen! She was eventually caught, wormed and hooves trimmed!

If you want to find out more about Llanwennogs as a breed click here

Find their beautiful wool here for sale!

Craftiness, Livestock, Meet the Animals, Tyddyn Bryn on Etsy, yarn

Sheepy Sunday!

Ellie

So last Month I told you some of Wanda’s story….

Up this month is Baabara!

Baabara is a mule most likely, Welsh white… something along those lines! She is the white faced one in this picture and is the MOST suspicious sheep you will ever meet!!

When they come up for feed in the field, Baabara is always right at the back! She is the hardest to catch, utterly unmotivated by food and a talented escape artist like her friend Wanda!

I say friend, but the pair of them tolerate on another and that’s about it!! Baabara prefers to mix with a few of the Llanwenogs!

She was given to us by neighbour who had her as an odd one out in their flock of Lleyn sheep to keep Wanda company in our fields and it helped to keep Wanda from wandering!!

She has a beautiful full soft fleece and it makes for gorgeous yarn!!

You can try out some of her wares here!! All spun up locally here in West Wales and dyed by me!