PREPARING FOR LAMBING

England may be under swathes of snow, but the Hebrides has enjoyed a lengthy spell of glorious bright, calm weather.  How frustrating our reputation is for terrible weather! Today, however, the wind and overcast chill has returned.  While that does make for a happy turbine-owner, it’s not great for visiting family or small children.

The farm is ready for lambing – the ewes have been appropriately dosed against liver-fluke and additional supplies of  glucose, calcium, antibiotics, lubricant and gloves are on stand-by for difficult births and disasters.  Last year was easy, with very few assisted births or deaths.  Let’s hope the same is true for this year.  Weather is the key, though – a cold, wet wind and weak newborn lambs will struggle to get up.   Ravens, hooded crows and black-back gulls gather ominously, waiting for their chance to attack.  Farmers feel fiercely defensive of their newborn calves and lambs – not just because they represent financial gain, but also because we all instinctively want to protect fluffy, vulnerable mammals from reptilian creatures!  It’s easy to understand how a ferocious, sinister-looking bird like the raven might have become endangered, even if we also understand that killing them is destructive to environmental balance.  So often, protecting the environment involves overcoming our natural human (or maybe animal?) nature.