Hill Radnor Lambing

The lambing continuing slowly we now have four lambs, three ewes and one ram, the last two have been singles and are huge compared to last year.

All well so far with the last lamb and mother turned out in the orchard with the other lambs. Looking forward to small gangs of lambs bombing round the field.

Hill Radnor Sheep

Never a dull moment keeping sheep, this little one is from last years lambs she was one of a twin which had a difficult delivery her brother died from a pneumonia infection. She was on antibiotics but pulled through. Always smaller than the other lambs she has a feisty character and can hold her own.

But last week she was found "down" on the field with the other hoggs as floppy as a rag doll. We don't hold out much hope but have taken her to the vet. She had antibiotics for pneumonia and Vitamin B jabs and for the fist night we used a drench gun to give her water and sugar mix in an attempt to keep her alive.

So far she has survived and I'll update with progress

Latest on lambing the Hill Radnor sheep

raising animals can bring real moments of joy, these are our first lambs born this week, a ewe and ram lamb, both doing well. Gave me a big lift seeing them both in the field they needed no intervention and were both standing and suckling in minutes, All I had to do was Iodine the umbilical cord and leave them with the ewe to bond for a while.

They have since been put out in the field away from the expectant ewes and are growing well.
The next day we had a ewe produce to dead lambs, its heart breaking to see her lying next to her dead lambs and defending them from the dog or me. In the past we have removed dead lambs quickly but this seems to cause distress to the ewe as she calls for her lost lamb. This time left her with them until the morning and she seemed a lot less stressed with no frantic calling and searching.
A sad sight, the ewe was very thin and didn't put any condition on despite extra feeding, the vet thinks she may have detached the placenta early due to her poor condition, we have yet to find out why the ewe is so thin.

The rest of lambing has stalled ewes are getting fatter but not producing any more as yet.

This is the first day of lambing in theory, the ewes were mated five months to the day. So far no sign, we haven't had them scanned so have no idea what we will get, We know that the Tup has done what he can, he was 'raddled' so theft his mark but what the ewes will produce is unknown.

These Radnors do not bag up like the Lleyns making it difficult to see how far on they are, we shall just have to wait and see.

Millie here playing with the neighbours Collie Rob who despite looking so similar doesn't share any of her breeding. Rob doesn't work sheep as he apparently developed a lameness problem when working so has been let go as a companion.
Millie not showing any signs of a season yet but should be some time in March

Bees and spring

I've done my second inspection of the year and similar to previous years we have suffered losses of around 30%.

The story goes: check in February all colonies fine , check three weeks later 30% dead or non viable.

The serious losses seem to take place in one site at a time, different one each year and manifest as a complete loss of bees but stores and often brood still in place.

In my view probably Nosema even though I have treated with Fumidil in the Autumn as per recommendations.

I will be using my own survivor bees as breeders and hope to bring disease resistance into my hives.

What I don't fully understand is that the losses concentrate on specific sites while others get through with 5% or less losses. Could it be that larger numbers of hives kept together for a couple of years or more in some way exacerbate the disease effect? This does run counter to the advice that moving bees around increases the chances of loss through disease.

More work needed...

The hives in Shropshire unusually seemed to have fared better this year. Above is a nucleus hive which has a viable queen and stores so I swapped position with a stronger hive to give it more workers, below is one of my Langstroth hives which has come through quite strong so far.
I am also baby sitting a friends hives one WBC perhaps the prettiest hive to be invented,with the added advantage for the amateur of creating four times the work during inspections, not so good for more commercial operations.
This is the modified national a simple single walled hive based on the Langstroth model but redesigned by British beekeepers to make it smaller and slightly less practical that the original. Thankfully both seem to have made it through the winter.

Season so far

We are in an unusually warm spell at the moment a trend which has developed over the past few years of warm period late winter early spring. We may gamble on that next year and bring lambing forward by a month to February.

Lambing is on schedule for first week of March, the ewes are slow at putting on condition so I've upped their rations Perhaps it is a feature of the breed but they will need more condition during lambing, something we will need to keep an eye on over the next few weeks.

The bees have been fed twice during the winter and have been treated for Nosema, I have omitted the Varroa treatment this year a fact I am increasingly uneasy about. I may resort to a late treatment with Oxalic acid over the next week, will have to see how the time goes. I think that to allow some pressure from Varroa every now and again is useful in preventing Varroa resistance to Oxalic or Thymol. But that doesn't stop me worrying about the upsurge in Varroa especially in this warm winter.

The vegetables have not got going yet, Broad Beans, Garlic and Spinach are all in and growing and we have just planted the Leek seeds in a cold frame.

As for the year ahead we are hoping to expand the bees, transfer the sheep flock over to Hill Radnors exclusively. Perhaps move at last to Care farming and last but not least have a litter of Pups from Millie. She has been going great guns recently but more of that in a later post.

Bees and the warm autumn

Last week the hive in our garden, a self positioned swarm had pollen loads coming in, presumably from remnant Ivy flowers. Although if this weather keeps going for much longer we will have spring plants in flower and Rhubarb growing. We already have grass growing at a rate close to that of this summer (slow).

All is fine for the animals and vegetables, the leeks are growing well and the tunnel crops are developing quickly.

The bees though are a worry, warm weather means bees will be active and consuming honey stores possibly rearing young so eating into pollen supplies.

So what to do? Feed and potentially stimulate more activity or leave them and risk starvation? The answer I think is to check all and feed were needed, there may be some increase in activity but the coming cold weather will soon put a stop to that. we are going to get some cold weather aren't we?