Happy Easter. As the festival is late this year, like most local sheep farmers we may have time to rest and enjoy the bank holiday weekend, as lambing is very nearly over.

I meet many members of the public who ask what happens during lambing?

Here is a synopsis of our lambing at Cwmfron. We put the rams with the ewes in autumn. About 80 days later we scan them to establish how many lambs each they will produce. The ewes are then fed on diets appropriate to the number of lambs they are bearing through the rest of the winter until 147 days after the rams were introduced.

The action then starts 24 hours a day. Many farmers lamb indoors, out of the bad weather and where problems with presentations can be sorted easily. We house the sheep in pens of 35 and as they lamb, they are moved with their new-borns into individual pens to bond. The ewe immediately receives water. When dry the lambs’ navel is sprayed with iodine to stop infection and they receive a homeopathic remedy to guard against digestive infection. Lambs are very quick to stand and instinctively go to suckle the very important first milk called colostrum. If a ewe has triplets I often make up powdered colostrum to supplement each lamb.

The ewe and her lambs remain in individual pens until the lambs look strong, when they are marked up and moved out to the field in the morning.

There are many small, time consuming problems. Some ewes need assistance with lambing if the lamb is coming backwards or is too big; some ewes will not accept their own lamb back if another ewe has pinched it while she is having the second; sometimes a ewe does not have enough milk for all her lambs, particularly triplets, so one lamb becomes a pet lamb and sadly sometimes there is a death of a lamb or even a ewe.

Of course, once the new lambs are out in the field with their mothers the sheep must have plenty of high-quality food to provide milk and the lambs must be inspected to check they are well, especially in rough weather.

When is lambing over? Probably when all the lambs are happily running around the fields, the sheds are empty and all helpful relations, friends and vet students have gone home.