I think I have just lambed my last Suffolk ewe! The shearlings as usual managed to ease them out, afterwards denying all knowledge of the performance. I try to pen these before they lamb very often finding mum standing on the lamb chewing the cudd, the only thing I have found to break through the unbelievably thick skull, and even thicker brain of a pedigree Suffolk sheep is the sound of a feed bag. The slightest murmur they will trample anything in their way to reach the grub. The older ewes, in fairness to them haven’t been quite as difficult as usual. They have sort of got on with it, though some big lambs have needed easing away. I do stay with them after lambing because the ewes tend to be impatient and claw the lambs to get them up and going, I also like to see them have a gut full of colostrum as quick as possible. The ewe, after lambing gets a jag of hay and half a bucket of water: I can then sleep contented until the next. I say sleep, I mean waking every so often dreaming of lambs being slowly drawn to the water trough and falling over the side, a ewe standing on a lamb’s head, hurdles falling on lambs after the ewe has eaten the string. Lambs squeezing somehow through the hurdles and getting stuck. But most of all the lamb or ewe falling into a calm deep slumber so deep they forget to wake up.
Of course, lots of them do make it, this is when the whole job moves up a notch. Every year without fail the very best single ewe or tup lamb grows like a weed, runs around faster each day, your excitement builds imagining it as a shearling walking around the show ring, rosettes all over its headstall, drinking whisky out of the cup he or she’s won. You then walk in the shed and trip over it. This is the only time since its entry into the world that its mum has shown any interest in the bloody thing. You stand in amazement watching the ewe trying to get it up, the dog even looks baffled. It’s funny how at Suffolk lambing time the dog always has a look of wonder in its eye. I have never once doubted his intelligence or capabilities, but I am sure for just three weeks of the year he doubts mine.
The lambs grow bigger and dimmer by the day looking forward to all of the creep feeders, hay racks, handling systems, gates, hedges and water troughs they can get stuck in and die. There seems to be a set amount of money you spend on them before they expire. Yes, they do seriously try my patience to the limit, but they will never beat me. We have a Churchillian:Hitler relationship. and the best thing is when you finished lambing 25 stupid Suffolk’s, helping my son lamb his Scotch Mules is a walk in the park by comparison.
Some reflections: Is a Southdown ewe or lamb ever is ever as stupid as a Suffolk? Did the Suffolks get their IQ and thick skull from the Southdown or the Norfolk Horn? Why did those Suffolk ears get so long? Do the ears taste nice?
These ponderings have been submitted by Patrick Goldsworthy, from an old Suffolk friend and breeder.
