The children are bursting with excitement here as the first of the lambs have started to arrive. I have two shadows following me around the yard, eager to be of assistance. I was showing them a video of a child delivering a lamb on YouTube and now I have two volunteers keen to do the same. Mia is doting on the lambs and we could find one in the house if we’re not vigilant. The first arrivals came last weekend.

I prefer being in the swing of things to the weeks before lambing begins as I find I am on edge in this period. You almost have too much time to think about various scenarios that may occur. There won’t be too much time to think this week if they lamb down as predicted. On the really busy days there could be up to 100 ewes or more lambing per day.

I haven’t finished assembling what individual pens I have room for at the moment, but hopefully I will have the last ones erected before things really heat up.

Health issues such as joint ill and watery mouth have not been a major problem. We have stringent hygiene procedures in place such as every newborn lamb’s navel being sprayed with iodine and all pens receiving a good cover of hydrated lime and fresh straw between ewes at a minimum, with pens being fully cleaned out and disinfected as often as allowed.

Clearing them out fully is ideal, but I may not always achieve this standard of cleanliness during the very busy periods. In general it has been relatively successful, with only minor issues, usually nearing the end of lambing. This in part is probably because I like to get ewes and lambs out to the fields as soon as possible and out of the sheds and away from sources of infection.

Antibiotic resistance is gaining momentum as what we use for our livestock is also used to treat ourselves. I try to avoid blanket pre-emptive antibiotic treatments on my stock for this reason. Out of curiosity I decided to do two online polls to see what others were doing.

First, I asked farmers if they used antibiotics as a pre-emptive measure for joint ill and navel ill – 74% of respondents didn’t, while 26% did. I repeated the poll for watery mouth – 29% of respondents blanket used antibiotics for prevention with the remainder only using them if symptoms occurred. A recent poll of UK farmers would suggest 46.7% use antibiotics as a blanket treatment. There are farms with historical reasons for doing this but often we become reliant on what’s easier to do during busy periods.

Research suggests getting adequate good-quality colostrum into lambs at an early stage is a major step in providing lambs with the means to fight these infections, along with proper navel dipping and pen management. It was interesting to see in this small poll that I conducted the difference between practices here and in the UK. Perhaps it is something we should investigate further.