A long, long time ago I was sent - as part of my sandwich period - to “do time” as the night watch shepherd on two sheep farms in Ayrshire. There were two flocks of c. 500 Scottish Greyfaces (a Scottish Blackface crossed with a Border Leicester) on farms about 4 miles apart. I was based for the night in the farm manager’s office on one farm and had to stay awake for the night walking round the sheds roughly every hour and then visiting the other farm . It was pretty dull most of the night though fortunately there was a TV to watch (Not the Nine O’clock News was new then!) but in those days TV broadcasting switched off at midnight. The Greyfaces, probably due to their Calvinistic Scottish upbringing, were pretty consistent at starting to lamb at around 4am. They were feisty but comparatively easy to lamb and had a very characteristic S-shape sitting posture when they were preparing to lamb. Come 7am I was relieved by the head shepherd who referred to me as the “Big Yin!”
When I wrote about gestation length in the last newsletter and how Southdowns don’t read the textbooks, I failed to mention that they also fail to read the bit about what time of day to lamb. Being a bit of an anorak, I have been collecting additional lambing data for the last five years including time of birth and presentation (another article in the offing). So below I have collected the data from the last five years and 2025 so far. In order to manage the data into manageable chunks I have split the day into nautical watches:
As can be seen, there seems to be very little pattern to when Southdowns choose to lamb. There is a slight preference for the 4-8am slot, but it seems that they want to lamb whenever they feel like it. In theory there are some factors that should affect lambing time notably lighting/dawn - lights in the lambing sheds may affect diurnal rhythms. From 2020-22 lights were left on overnight as my lambing cameras needed the extra light, since then I have better cameras and lighting is minimal, but I have not noticed much difference. I suspect too that earlier dawns as lambing moves into April/May will affect lambing time… whether Southdowns take any notice is another matter. Certainly, I am very aware that my older girls usually wait till I am around before deciding to lamb, looking at me with a rather pained expression saying give me a hand I have spent all my energy standing up and eating. So, no rest for the wicked or the Southdown breeders!
Patrick Goldsworthy MBE, Webb Ellis and Heritage Flocks
