Snow, snow everywhere..........must be winter time again. Those bright, sunny autumn days seem a long time ago now. It's at times like these that using hardy native breeds for the grazing really starts to pay off.

Some of the Holywell volunteers checking over the new arrivals. The Swaledale and Cheviot cross sheep will be grazing the hay meadow for the next few weeks.


Jess in action

This week has seen grazing commence on a new area at Holywell pond. The flower meadow there is being grazed by sheep to remove the regrowth that has occurred since the meadow was cut for hay in the summer. The sheep will taken off once the meadow has been grazed down and before the the flowering plants and other broadleaved plant species start to grow in the spring. There is a keen group of volunteers who help to maintain the site and who will regularly check the sheep while they are there.

An early start this morning to take some of the shearling lambs into the abattoir, not my favourite job I have to say but they have had a good life grazing on the nature reserves and now must make way for the young lambs that were born this year. There will be probably be one more trip to make before there will be a break as everywhere gets too busy for Xmas....turkeys or something so I believe! Bet they haven't been on a nature reserve! Any way there will be more lambs available in the new year depending on the weather so if anyone is interested and would like to support the project please contact me.

The winter grazing programme started properly yesterday with Exmoor ponies going onto Ragpath heath. They will be there for about a month before moving on to another small site nearby. The ponies are excellent grazers of some of the more rugged sites coping well with the difficult conditions.