Now the weather is warming up and the grass is growing some of the sheep can get dirty around their back end this can lead to fly strike in early summer especially if we get a few warm day. This can be prevented by trimming the wool around their tails, it is much easier to do before they get mucky and are still clean. Today with the help of some volunteers from the Wildlife Trust we rounded up, wormed and trimmed out the first batch.

A volunteer gets to grips with one of the sheep under the watchful eye of Jess and they are all still smiling at the end!

This jobs full of surprises! While routinely going through and checking some of our Soay sheep we discovered that some where in lamb. When we bought them back in December I asked if they had been near a ram and was assured that they hadn't........someone has obviously been sneaking around after lights out!

Normally these type of sheep are not lambed until they are fully grown at 2 years old, these are only 1 year old and quite small and so they have been moved to some better pasture where I can keep a closer eye on them.

One of the St Georges volunteers after a successful roundup.

In transit

and into their new home where they are closely inspected by the Shetland ewes already in residence!

Spring must be here! We had our first Shetland lamb this morning he/she was happily trotting around after its mum when I arrived this morning to collect 2 rams to take to market. New life replacing old. We don't have many ewes due to lamb as most of our flock is made up of wethers but it is always nice to see young lambs running around in the sunshine.

I moved some Manx loaghtans to new grazing this morning and they are starting to shed their fleeces. it always amazes me how early some of these primitive breeds start to lose their coats certainly long before it feels warm enough to me!