Highs and lows of lambing season for award-winning farmer

Annie Carr is counting the cost of a dog attack on her ewe lambs just days before their due date.

Out of 50 ewe lambs tupped, 10 had dead lambs and a further nine gave birth to live lambs but failed to rear them.

“It’s had a huge effect – not only on the lambs, but the lamber too. I’ve never had to dig so deep to get through lambing,” says Annie, who runs her crossbred flock at The Brays, Herefordshire.

See also: Farmers Weekly Awards 2024: Sheep Farmer of the Year

The National Sheep Association’s latest survey on sheep worrying revealed that dog attacks are not only persisting in frequency but also becoming more severe.

However, the attack on Annie’s sheep was unusual: rather than in the field, the damage was done in the lambing shed.

Indoor attack

“I’ve never heard of a dog attack in a shed,” she says.

“A neighbour’s pet collie got in with the ewe lambs, rounded them up, pushed them from side to side into the barriers, into the water trough.

“The dog didn’t put a mark on them, but they were heavily in lamb, and they’d been pushed for a minimum of 10 minutes.”

While there were no initial problems, the extent of the harm caused became clear once lambing started.

“I had stillborn after stillborn,” she says. Worse was the impact on those that gave birth to live lambs.

“Their hormones were out of balance, so I struggled to get them to lamb and to milk,” says Annie.

Despite the losses, Annie is counting her blessings they were not greater.

“I’m just so thankful the dog didn’t go to the main shed where my ewes were. It could have been so much worse – more sheep in more pens carrying more lambs,” she says.

Overall, lambing has gone well. “Scan was 10% lower than usual, but the lambs have been good and no serious issues. The weather really helped – we could turn out quickly.”

Younger flock, lower scan

Annie puts the lower scan down to having a younger flock – 75% are ewe lambs or two-year-olds – because she has grown the enterprise.

She now has 485 ewes, up from 270, with an additional 150 running dry last summer.

“It’s a big jump up, but it’s a more efficient use of my time, with nice numbers to go to and good-sized blocks of land.

“I’ll prioritise my flock over my contracting work slightly more now. I’m still hoping to hit my target of lambing 500 next year,” she says.

An automatic lamb feeder has proven its worth this season, saving Annie’s mum the job of hand-rearing lambs and freeing Annie’s time.

She bought a Volac feeder with Rural Payments Agency grant funding and reared 55 lambs to weaning at five weeks, the vast majority triplets or twins from ewe lambs.

Warm milk replacer was fed ad lib until all were drinking well when they were switched onto cold milk feeding.

“I rate it highly and the saving in labour compared with hand rearing is huge,” she says.

“It would cost £53.84 a lamb to weaning if I were to pay someone to do this, and on the automatic feeder it was just £12.21 a lamb.”

Annie has also been able to wean individual lambs, rather than in batches which risks keeping lambs on milk longer than necessary.