Walkies

Meet pet calf number 2. A boy this time, his mum just didn't have any milk for him. She loved him dearly its such a shame to have to make him a pet. But Mhairi will have some company now. Hes struggling to adjust to the bottle and believes there is no milk in the world now so wont even try so its a little frustrating.

Since we had the new boy we had to rearrange the shed and bring the pet lambs out to the open sided shed. Lots of organising and moving of lambs, ewes, calves, pallets, troughs, buckets, hay hecks etc etc. Everyone seems happy with their new accommodation. This was the new boy taking the short walk to his new pen, he wasn't at all bothered by the dogs.

In the afternoon at the farm where we manage the livestock we had to move the hoggs (last years ewe lambs) and some of the lambed ewes out of the silage fields as they are in a scheme which means no grazing from tomorrow and the silage cant be cut until the 1st of August. I think if I remember correctly this is to provide habitat for corncrakes if they decided they like the place. There are wildlife corridors that have already been shut off from stock as well on this farm.

We took two hoggs off and put them in one of the cottages on the farms garden as lawn mowers as they had requested some eco mowers. We did hastily remove their potted plants once said sheep were released as even though the grass is ankle high the hoggs were bound to start with their flowers!

I took Pip to move the ewes and lambs out of their field. She needed to be steady (not always her thing) to make sure all the sleeping lambs were up and with their mums. However one little rascal lamb popped out from behind a mound that we hadn't seen and by this point the ewes were getting quite far away. I must say at this point that lambs are Pips nemesis, she is a very energy sensitive dog and finds their bleating and darting around almost impossible to resist and generally goes into chase chase mode when she can. Well not today she quietly stalked this single lamb up the hill taking lie down commands and even flanked it without command as it went to almost miss the gate. So so so proud of my wee girl today. I couldn't have asked for more from her.

13c 17mph NE dropping and swing round to the south to 5 mph by the afternoon. Lovely sunny day again yay!!

Oh and the dogs are exhausted as they watched pet lamb tv for a few hours whilst we were sorting out the shed!