Novel about Sheep on moorland / grass border

Liiz

Member
Hello!

I'm an imposter here - small animal vet so I've done a few lambing seasons, off work d/t crazy illness so writing a novel for fun.

Unfortunately a sheep farm has turned up in my novel - I only say unfortunately because I haven't worked with sheep since I qualified, and was therefore hoping I could trouble you for help.

My made up sheep farm has Easter lambing in a barn. It is on the edge of a national park, has a few grassy fields with footpaths through and a ridge beyond with heather/ shorter grass (perhaps they graze on this land with permission- if so who would it belong to?). I was thinking of a peak district gritstone edge when I wrote the storyline, or farms in a valley in the Lakes...

What I can't figure out is, how is the land used over the year? Is it normal / plausible that the ewes would be brought indoors to lamb, put out to grass after a few days, then - at somepoint when be lambs had grown a bit - a gate would (deliberately) be left open so ewes and lambs could wander up onto the higher ground (if so, when would that be? perhaps when they run out of grass or atocking density got too much on the lower fields?)

Or maybe the ewes and lambs would stay lower until the lambs went for slaughter, then the sheep would be allowed to roam higher again?

Or maybe the gates from the lower field would be left open, so the ewes and new lambs would have access to the moorland / ridge bit right away? (If so would they actually leave the nice green fields at first, or would they stay until the green grass was grazed low, then venture higher?)

Which scenario's most likely? Or does it depend on something i havent thought of yet? Thanks for humoring me!
 

yellowbelly

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
N.Lincs
Which scenario's most likely? Or does it depend on something i havent thought of yet? Thanks for humoring me!
You need to read @Gator 's....
https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/coming-home-for-lambing.98280/
.......paraphrase it a bit, change all the names to protect the innocent, pay him a royalty, and me 10% (I'm his literary agent :greedy::greedy:) and the job's a good 'un:whistle:;)

:p:p

Edit, depending on where you come from you might need a Lancashire/English translation app.
 

Liiz

Member
Thanks for that Yellowbelly. Lovely barn, Gator.

Exactly what my imaginary farmer needs!

Now here's what I've understood but will you kindly correct all my balls-ups? Plea-ease?

Gator's farm lambs end of Feb
Bring sheep back (into the barn?) end of Jan to settle in because the grounds getting poached by then. Has to pay for silage and substrate for that month = a trade-off.

BUT there are also some sheep that hang out on moorland (better for feet) and they don't come in until they're about to lamb, which saves money on silage/ bedding?

When the sheep come in off the moor, how long til the first one starts lambing IDEALLY? Have you got this wrong at all since you've had the barn?

What sort of field do they go into? (The nice green walled-off fields that I see driving through the white Peak / Yorkshire / possibly lancs, or can they go straight out to moorland? Is this done?

Y the way, DID I mention tgat looks like a lovely barn? With I'd done my lambing rotations in something like that.

Thanks
 
Thanks for that Yellowbelly. Lovely barn, Gator.

Exactly what my imaginary farmer needs!

Now here's what I've understood but will you kindly correct all my balls-ups? Plea-ease?

Gator's farm lambs end of Feb
Bring sheep back (into the barn?) end of Jan to settle in because the grounds getting poached by then. Has to pay for silage and substrate for that month = a trade-off.

BUT there are also some sheep that hang out on moorland (better for feet) and they don't come in until they're about to lamb, which saves money on silage/ bedding?

When the sheep come in off the moor, how long til the first one starts lambing IDEALLY? Have you got this wrong at all since you've had the barn?

What sort of field do they go into? (The nice green walled-off fields that I see driving through the white Peak / Yorkshire / possibly lancs, or can they go straight out to moorland? Is this done?

Y the way, DID I mention tgat looks like a lovely barn? With I'd done my lambing rotations in something like that.

Thanks

If you travel in that area, which town are you working in?

Large areas of the peak district belong to a Barnsley based glass company. Who have two sources of income, a small rent for grazing & a income from grouse shooting. Tenants wives sometimes help prepare meals for the shooters.

To the west Kirkless council own some moorland plus water companies & natural England have more say on the land manegment. They have banned grouse shooting in some areas & dramatically reduced sheep numbers, although the graziers have been very well compensated for that. Sadly the rewilding has not gone well & with the unussually dry weather moorland fires have been very sereve.
 

Liiz

Member
Thats interesting. I'm Sheffield based.

Surprised to hear about the company-owned moorland - wouldn't have expected their interest in rewilding. Which company and why?

I'll get researching!
 

onesiedale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Derbyshire
Wasn't there a writer looking for a film 'storyline' set on a lake district farm a few months ago?
TFF members did a pretty good job of writing it or them, made excellent reading. Someone will be along shortly with a link, can't remember what the thread was called
 

Old Tip

Member
Location
Cumbria
We are in the lakes and lamb the draft ewes in a shed as we have little grass at home, they then stay round the farm for a week in batch’s of twenty five ewes and then taken to the off lying fields till weaning. The hill ewes are lambed in an intake on the hill which is split four bits. The ewes that have lambed are shedded off every few days from the three smaller twenty acre bits onto the big hundred acre. The lambs are ringed, marked and have spot on applied to help against ticks. Once they are all lambed we round them all up again and vaccinate the lambs and apply pour on before turning them to the fell till shearing in July
 

Liiz

Member
Thankyou.

What's the terrain like on your hundred acre? Would you trust lambs that small to cope without lemming-it (technical term) over edges?


We are in the lakes and lamb the draft ewes in a shed as we have little grass at home, they then stay round the farm for a week in batch’s of twenty five ewes and then taken to the off lying fields till weaning. The hill ewes are lambed in an intake on the hill which is split four bits. The ewes that have lambed are shedded off every few days from the three smaller twenty acre bits onto the big hundred acre. The lambs are ringed, marked and have spot on applied to help against ticks. Once they are all lambed we round them all up again and vaccinate the lambs and apply pour on before turning them to the fell till shearing in July
 

Liiz

Member
Thanks, that'd be awesome. As long as the photos aren't of lambs drowning themselves in water buckets (Or was there another method of choice)?

What predators? Much trouble with dogs?
 

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