Last time through the fank this year

Tupping has finished.  All the ewes have been put through the fank, they have been checked over and given a bolus with Cobalt and Selenium in it, plus a drench against liver fluke.  

Our first Christmas here in 1994, the ewes were all out on the hill and the tups were out on the hill with them, supposedly for 6 weeks.  A ewe's cycle is 17 days so giving them 6 weeks with the tup means if they don't mate on their first cycle there is a second chance 17 days later.    We didn't expect the tups to be taken off the hill until the first week in January when their 6 weeks ended.  So imagine our surprise when the tups all started appearing back at the farm on Boxing Day!   

The next winter we brought all the ewes in off the hill and put them in the fields for tupping.  Having them in smaller fields rather than on the open hill meant that the tups had less far to travel to find a fertile ewe and would be easier for us to check up on.  In days gone before, traditional hill farms would have had a tupping shepherd but we couldn't afford one of those!   We were told by an old farmer locally that this was dangerous, that they would die being in the fields.  Luckily we were right and he was wrong so we have done the same thing every year since.  

Our 6 weeks was up just before Christmas so Farmer put small lots through the fank on his own and had DG helping him for the big lot.  I took them lunch up in the shed, socially distant and well draughty! 

The ewes are now back on the hill with the old ewes in one field, the Herdwicks in another and the Cheviots in a third.  The two larger lots are being fed now with the snacker, whilst the Herdwicks get theirs by hand! 

Weaning calves

It is always a sad day when the calves are weaned and go off to market.  The cows holler and call for their calves, roaming around the fields looking for them after they have gone.

Before we bought our own cows our neighbour used to graze his cattle here in the summer.  When it was time for the calves to be weaned he would walk the cows back over to his farm, the calves would go from there to market in a lorry, and the cows would be put on to his own hill again.  Several times we woke in the morning the day after the calves had gone to find his cows had made their own way back to Treshnish searching for their calves.  

In these photographs the cows are calling for their calves.  It was morning and the calves had just gone. By the afternoon they had started drifting off to the other side of the hill park to graze.

The next morning Farmer walked them down towards Haunn and they went into Scoma. The bull chivalrously waited until all the cows had reached the gate before he went through himself.