SLEETY snow has been falling all day and now turns to rain, hammering down on all ready saturated fields and blotting out the far hedges with clinging mist that looks as if it’s escaped from a Dickensian graveyard.

We’re both soaked in spite of wellies and wax coats and I’ve just done a spectacular, though involuntary dive through the mud while trying to head off an errant ewe who has become highly suspicious of the needle I’ve been waving around!

The only ones enjoying the experience are the dogs who are besides themselves with excitement at being allowed to round up the flock. We’re giving the ewes their yearly clostridial vaccine boosters. This has to be done four - six weeks before lambing to ensure that the ewe has enough time to build up and pass on antibodies to her unborn lambs. This will protect them from a whole range of diseases that can have fatal consequences. If you’re wondering why we are doing this in such atrocious conditions the simple truth is we have no choice! We’re smallholders, which, in our case, means our farming interests contribute to our income, but don’t form the major part. In fact, body and soul would long ago have parted company if we had to rely solely on our grassroots income to hold them together! During the week we have to devote most of our time to our engineering business which keeps the family afloat so a routine job, like clostridial vaccination has to be done at weekends, irrespective of what the weather throws at us!

So why on earth do we do it? Good question and one I’ve asked myself many times, especially in situations like this when I’m wiping mud out of my eyes and sheep dung off my clothes! When pushed for an answer I usually come up with something like, “Oh I like the idea of producing some of my own food,” or when the children were smaller, “it teaches the kids a sense of responsibility and gives them an appreciation of where their food comes from and what happens to it.” Yes I did actually say that to their primary school teacher who seemed most impressed at my level of parenting! Unbeknown to her, one of them couldn’t shut the rabbits’ door to save his life and another, once built a huge bonfire in the corner of our hay meadow and came within a whisker of destroying the year’s entire crop! In my experience, farm children tend to take their life style for granted, they don’t ponder the order or scheme of things, they just accept it for what it is, it’s the back drop to their lives and like kids from other backgrounds, they make the best and worst of it.

Children have no choice but to live the way their parents decree, but not so adults. Most of us have deliberately chosen this way of life, either because we were born into it and have stayed with it, or through circuitous routes from other life styles. Many, voice admirable reasons for their decisions, but there are a great many others, I suspect that are like me, who do it because they can’t possibly consider living any other way. They may try and justify their life style, but the real reason, is more fundamental.

Growing crops, caring for animals and the land is one of the physical manifestation of the spiritual path almost every human being has a yen to travel whether they admit to it or not. This is even more so now that the near collapse of the world banking systems has heralded a wake-up call to the nation’s psych and caused a lot of people to re-evaluate their belief systems.

Hardly surprising then, to find many more folk wandering down the path to a more natural, self-sufficient life style which fortunately, is well within the reach of most of us. It hardly matters whether this is a farm of many hundreds of acres or a couple of herb pots on the kitchen window sill and a weekly visit to the local farmers’ market. The sense of connecting and being a part of the endless cycle of birth, death and regeneration is the same, only the degree is different. Smallholding then, could be said to be as much a state of mind as it is plants, livestock and plots of land. But that’s enough philosophy for one day. Smallholding is above all about practicalities and this particularly bleak November day, which has just seen the rain once again thicken into snow has also brought a couple of friends tramping across the field. We exchange calculating glances and the unspoken question shoots between us of the possibility of unlooked for help which seems unlikely when we check their dress code. Ron is wearing his best suit, Jill spiky heels and her slinky black number. They’ve just returned from a rare treat of a child free, pre-Christmas lunch with friends and have called in to see what we are up to! Big mistake!

Neither come from farming backgrounds, but they have just succumbed to the yen to step off the wheel of consumerism and embrace life as an urban smallholder. Their new house has a large garden in which they grow most of their own vegetables and keep enough hens to supply their five children with a daily breakfast egg. They are currently thinking of getting a milk goat. Unfortunately they have yet to learn the folly of visiting fellow smallholders during weekend daylight hours!

Amazingly neither jibs at donning overalls and wellies when we suggestively wave needles and vaccine in their faces and they are soon wading into our soggy, greasy flock catching and jabbing with cheerful enthusiasm. Now that’s what I call a smallholder!

PRE-LAMBING NOTES

VACCINATING AGAINST CLOSTRIDIAL DISEASES: The clostridial disease are Pulpy kidney, Black Leg, Braxy, Black Disease and Redwater. They are all potentially fatal and during the fifties caused huge losses amongst flocks. Unfortunately it is often difficult to diagnose these diseases without a post mortem which is why it makes good sense to protect your flock by proper vaccination.

Follow this guide and your chance of suffering any of the clostridial diseases will be small.

1. Vaccinate all lambs with an initial dose at between eight to 12 weeks of age. The vaccine should be administered under the skin at the neck. You don’t have to vaccinate for each type of disease, modern vaccines work on a combined principle.

2. A repeat dose must be given four to six weeks later. One dose is not enough!

3. Breeding ewes need to be given an annual “booster” six to four weeks before they lamb. Don’t forget to include ewe lambs which may not be lambed until the following year. This must not be missed as the idea here is that the ewe will pass on protective antibodies to her lambs through her colostrum which should keep them well during the first few weeks of life. Obviously this depends on her own level of protection which is why it makes good sense to adhere to a ridged vaccination programme.

For this reason, if some ewes look like lambing later than expected, don’t be afraid to give another booster. In the case of non-lambing ewe lambs, don’t skimp on giving the booster as you will have to start again with two sensitising jabs the following year.

If you are not sure that your ewes have been vaccinated against the clostridial diseases at all, then give two dose four to six weeks apart with the second dose six to four weeks before lambing.

Clostridial disease vaccine is extremely effective and inexpensive. You should be able to get it from good farm suppliers or your local vet. Don’t forget to record all vaccinations in your medical records book.

STEAMING UP: Growing lambs make huge demands on a ewe’s body, especially during the last few weeks of pregnancy. It is vital to ensure the flock is well fed if you want to ensure a good lamb crop and avoid problems such as twin lamb disease. This is caused by poor nutrition and can be avoided by offering high protein supplementary feeding during the six week run up to lambing.

Big sheep such as suffolks will need to build up to 1.5 K per day. Start with a small amount and build up slowly splitting feeds into two once you get beyond 0.5 K. You can use a good home mix or a proprietary ewe nut or mix. Ensure the protein content is a minimum of 16 per cent, preferably 17 per cent or 18 per cent.

FOOT CARE & DAGGING: It isn’t a good idea to keep handling heavily pregnant ewes so ensure feet are trimmed and sound well before lambing. If you do have to attend to a lame ewe near parturition, avoid upending but lift the foot in the manner of a blacksmith shoeing a horse.

It is also worthwhile “dagging” sheep around the same time. This is simply trimming away soiled wool from around the vent and udder.

This makes it easier to assist a difficult lambing and for the new born lamb to find the milk bar.