The lambing is finished until May. Although this was accidental, I do rather prefer spacing the lambing out in 2 different times. It gives us a bit of time to breath before the next wave of emotional roller coasters that are always present around lambing. We decided this year that tagging was indeed necessary to tell who is who later on in life once nursing is over! Two of our lambs from last year - Cynthia and Willow - look exactly the same and we have to muse for minutes who is who! Although tagging was a must, tail docking we are still unconvinced is a truly needed procedure. Tail docking is performed to keep flies from laying their eggs in the manure around the sheep's hindquarters, and to make work easier for the butcher and shearer. Although the fear of "flystrike" is very real we have decided that dedicated "crutching" (shearing) of the sheep's hindquarters a few times per summer will keep those nasty little flies away, plus good rotational grazing management limits flies as well.
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