Speaning the lambs

A long day for Farmer and J from Dervaig today. They started just after 8am and they had an hour's worth of work left to do when I made them some tea at 6.30.

Tomorrow is another lamb sale in Oban, so today the Blackies were in the fank.  Lambs and ewes are separated first.  Our neighbours ewes and lambs are taken out at the same time!  The 95 best ewe lambs were taken off and penned separately - future breeding ewes.  The wedder (male) lambs are all sold, but they have to be graded.  We can only take 60 in one go, so the top draw (the best 60) were pulled out and all the rest will go with the eild (barren) ewes and cast (those we no longer need) ewes in to the big field below the house.  We will sell them at a later date.  Everything was treated except the 60 being sold. They were ear tagged.  So A LOT was done.

It was beautifully sunny, but the wind was blowing up dust in the yard, so not the most comfortable conditions for them to work in.

The ewes we are keeping get let back to the hill. The lambs are noisy, calling frantically for their mothers.  They will quieten down when it gets dark.