Egads!

Oh my....it's been pretty darn busy since starting up the semester a week and a half ago.  Last week was absolutely brutal.  Talk about being forced into getting back on track with a schedule...sheeesh!  I could simply not get enough sleep.  I had 3 dissections and volunteered out at the farm last week, making for some very loooong days. I went out Friday night to celebrate a friend's birthday and it all came to a head this weekend.  I slept and slept and slept and slept.  And slept some more.  Me and the Bingos were professional couch potatoes and I felt no shame. The weather was perfect for it though...typical Scotland with overcast skies and periods of rain (really drizzle here).  Sooo sleepy.

Last week was good, just super long days.  We started our dog, cat and equine lectures..yay.  Like I said, we also did 3 dissections - two of the thorax and began the abdomen.  They went very well.  A classmate and I volunteered to help out at the sheep farm one afternoon scanning ewes.  It was open to all years and about 12 of us showed up.  They were scanning (ultra sounding) for pregnancy.  We had to go through about 400 ewes (female sheeps).  Our job, as students, was to move the sheep from pen to pen, get them up the chute and into the crush for the technician, put a dot of paint on their wool according to how many babes they were carrying and to do anything else that was needed. The norm for an ewe is twins, as she has two teats to milk her babes.  We did not mark these.  We marked for singles, triplets, quads (had one) and empty (not pregnant).  There were very, very few empties.  These gals are fertile!  You mark them for how many lambs they are carrying so they can feed them appropriately.  Also, at lambing time, you would want to take a lamb from the mother of triplets and put it with a single, so everyone gets milk.  Ewes will kill lambs that are not theirs, so you have to disguise it in bodily fluid from the mother or one of her lambs.  A little disguise, if you will.

In addition to getting more handling skills under our belts, we also got to observe the screen showing the ultrasound.  It was a challenge for me in the beginning to even have a clue what any of the blobs of grey meant. Or even what blob I was supposed to be looking at. Eventually, I had convinced myself that I could see something, but honestly was not sure at all.  Occasionally, he would point them out and show us where the head was, followed by a body and where the other lambs were hiding in that black hole of a uterus.  That is when I KNEW I was getting it!!  I could actually pick them out before he told us sometimes...amazing.  We learned that he scans about 120,000 ewes a season at about 50-55 pence (cents in USD) per scan.  Wow.  Lambing season here for the most part right around Easter.  We get a month off at Easter time to go lambing on farms as part of our requirement for our extramural studies. That should be great fun and everyone looks forward to it.

This week has been just as busy through today. Another dissection on Monday, followed by a Pig practical today. We had to go almost an hour out of town to an agricultural college since we do not have pigs at our school.  And, I think I know why.....whew......do they stinkola.  There were only 15 of us in our group and then we got split into two smaller ones.  My group went to see the sows and piglets first.  The welfare regulations here are actually better than in the US for the piggies.  Once the sows are ready to farrow (give birth), they are moved to small stalls that only allow the sow to stand up and lie down. There is extra space on either side of her, but this if for the piglets and she is cannot really move around. This is because it is common for the sows to inadvertently crush piglets.  There is also a box in the front of the pen the piggies can go into that has heat lamps and is kept very, very warm. We saw a sow in labor and she had just delivered her first baby. It is not uncommon for them to have 8-13 piglets.  They are kept in these stalls until the piggies are weaned at 28 days.  We got to vaccinate several groups of piglets, which was fun. Oh, did they ever squeal like babies as you held them for whoever was injecting......SQUEEEEEE....right in the ole ear.

We also got to play with older pigs who were being 'finished off'.  This means they fatten em up for slaughter. This is where the stench factor was thousandfold compared to the sows and piglets.  They are all housed indoor and it's warm, humid and unbelievably odorous.  We were taught how to move the pigs around with a board that is about 3' x 3'. We had to shuffle them from their pen on to a scale.  They are crafty big things and will run you over if you are in the way and they decide to go somewhere.  The 'Baconers' are over 90kg and ready to become bacon.  We had a couple of them in our group.

All in all, a very good start back.  Exams are looming in on us and we are all feeling the pressure. I can't talk about it without getting the shakes.

Tomorrow is a short day, thank goodness.  I'm finished at 11am and will love it.

Both of the Bingos are snoring, which I absolutely adore.  It means they are happy campers and sound asleep. Time to wake em up and head to sleep myself.

Over-N-Out

Baaaaaahh Baaaaaahh

I told y'all that I would write about the sheep portion of my Langhill/Easter Bush visit last week, so here it is.  The sheep farm is much, much smaller with only one shed/barn.  There is quite a bit of acreage, but we spent our time in the sheep shed at Easter Bush (5 minute drive from Langhill).  We have approximately 350 Scottish Mule ewes (females) and 20 Suffolk ewes.  The Scottish Mules are a crossbreed and look like this:

They are a cross between a Scottish Blackface Ewe and a Bluefaced Leicester Tup.  The Blackface looks like this: 

These are native to the hills of Scotland.  Extremely hardy and good mothers.  Medium sized with mixed wool.  We do not keep these as purebreds to breed directly from, as they live best in the hills. Therefore, we buy approximately 90 ewes a year from a certified and inspected farmer. They are kept and fed for a year on our farm.  They then are called 'Gimmers' and are bred.

A Bluefaced Leicester Tup (male, or ram) are these:

They are a very prolific breed, often exceeding 250% lambing. They are larger than the Blackface.

The Suffolk is the breed other than the Scottish Mule that we keep on the farm. This is one of ours here:

Suffolks are common where we are, very big, meaty and fast growing. But, they are high maintenance animals and that is one reason we do not breed them for purebreds.  Too dang persnickety.

The only purpose of our lambs is for lamb chops, basically.  They get bred at the end of October and after 147 days gestation period, give birth end of March, beginning of April  They put out 3 Tups (male studs) per 100 ewes in our fields to breed.  One way you can tell if your ewe has been bred is by using paint or crayons.  You mark the Tup's belly and it will rub off on the ewe if he has mounted her.  Sheep cycle every 17 days. If she doesn't take, try, try again. We buy one fresh Tup from elsewhere a year in order to bring some diversity to the flock.

In January, we bring in a technician to scan the sheep for pregnancy.  They should be able to tell us if they are pregnant with a single, twins, or triplets.  This is important to know, as a sheep only has enough teats for 2 babies.  If she is going to have 3, a foster mama will need to be available.  Ewes will kill babies that are not theirs, so you need to trick them into thinking they are.  Normally, rubbing the afterbirth of one of her own all over the foster baby will do the job. 

We sell our lambs for butcher at around 12 weeks if they are nice and fat and have a good body condition score.  They are not even put through the stress of getting weaned.  They should sell around 100 quid at that time.  Later in the season, the average is about 75 quid.  They need to be 40-45kg in order to go to butcher. 

We are required to do at least 2 weeks of lambing during our program.  Many students do more because it is usually a paid placement.  This is why the veterinary school gets 4 weeks of at Easter (one more week than the rest of the university)....we are all off lambing somewhere. 

So, now you know as much as I do about our sheep. In just over a week, I get to go do some sheep husbandry and learn how to actually handle them.  I am looking forward to that.

Here is a picture of some more of our flock.  You can see several different types, including all whit faces.  They apparently do some 'test crosses', so I am not sure what they are.

Time to finish up some work for tomorrow, which is a pretty long day.

Over-N-Out