I am so jealous of your lifestyle Remote, apart from all the hard work. Looking forward to more updates.
Sat drinking Superbock in the sunshine, on the quayside in Porto. Very good live bands playing everywhere. Lots of other very pleasant sights, if you know what I mean. Had a boat trip along the Duoro River this afternoon followed by 5 glasses of port for 5 Euros. Off for dinner now. Its a tough life but someone has to do it. Apologies for missing t'Udders tomorrow but a mate has my ST. Another win will be nice.
Another couple have popped out. Still waiting for the tsunami. This one was a bit weak and not feeding properly, so daughter put a tube down its throat and poured the milk in. There's about a foot of tube in there.
One of the good days. Sun is streaming down, quite mild, all us good. Just been hanging a couple 15 foot gates in the shed which was a bit strenuous. At least it'll feel like I earned the celebratory rum and coke for clings birthday.
After a good day in 'the office', a more sobering side this evening. Daughter not long messaged that the ewe having quads lambed this evening. Unfortunately, only 2 survived. First ewe we've ever had carrying quads. Didn't expect it to all be rosy. The reality is still not nice. Hey ho. We can just do the best for the remaining 2.
Getting triplets to survive is hard. There's usually a runt. As I said, we've never had quads before and weren't expecting all to survive. We'd penned her separately and were feeding her up. Not much more could be done. One of those things unfortunately.
I'm sure there will be worse to come cling. We've lost lambs for all sorts of reasons. Some are mistakes and lessons learned (they hurt the most), some unexplainable, some just bad luck and others very frustrating. We've has ewes lie on their lambs and squash / suffocate them, frustrating. We had one climb on hay and get into a water trough and drown, lesson learned. We had one in a small bucket today. Head out of the water, so just wet and cold. (water barrels now clear of anything they can climb on and over the weekend I'll be installing shallow water bowls like cisterns, so there is no depth of water, they are 2 feet off the ground and too small for a lamb to fit). Others you just don't know what happened. We've found one or two at a few months old just dead in a field. Not a mark on them. Totally unexplained. All you can do is your best. And if you don't get upset or frustrated when things go wrong, you shouldn't be doing it.
Just looking at that field. Doesn't look great in that piccy. The hoses have trashed it. Going to need a flat roller on it as soon as it's dry enough to get the tractor on it.
Can't say it was a dream FfB. Stumbled into it, but wouldn't have it any other way now. As I've repeatedly said, I play at it. Total respect to those who do it for a living.
Its an unfortunate side of the game. You'll lose 10 - 20% whatever you do. Still births, not surviving the birth, 'accidents'. It's usually the first ewes as they tend to be early and not gone full term. Or things like triplets and quads where the lambs aren't as big. 5 out of 7 running about so far.
