Keelham Hall Farm is a working farm with over 200 sheep. We breed Texels as they are a hardy sheep and they can deal with the harsh climate that we get here on the top of the hill. Being so high up, it's not uncommon for us to have snow in Winter. The good news is, we have a plough for the tractor, so being stuck in the snow is never a problem - it also keeps the car park and roads around us clear too.
Life on the farm is busy, early every morning we go and check on the sheep. We make sure there is nothing obviously wrong with any of them and that all the fencing is intact. The sheep mainly feed on grass, but we give them pellets and fruit & veg from the shop. We like to hand feed a them to keep them friendly so that we can better handle them.
In Winter when the grass is low, the sheep graze on haylage which is cut in the Summer. They also get more sheep pellets. A full belly keeps them nice and warm. A lot of the job of being a sheep farmer is observing your flock and making sure they are well fed and healthy.
In tupping season, we'll put our tups (boy sheep) in with the ewes. We'll mark up the tups chest so that we can see which ewes they have mated with. The tups usually go in with the ewes in Autumn, and we scan the sheep just before Christmas to see which ewes are pregnant. We'll mark the sheep up with a number, so we know how many lambs they are carrying.
Our lambing season is in Springtime, it usually falls around Easter. We spend all day and night in the lambing shed making sure all the little ones arrive safely. We mark the sheep and lambs with a matching number, just incase a little one gets lost. This way, we know who the mum is and we can reunite them.
Sometimes a ewe will have more than two lambs. They can only feed two lambs at a time, so a foster mum is found. This is usually a ewe that has only had one lamb. This ensures that all of the lambs are happy and healthy
Sometimes we'll have a few extra lambs who we can't find foster mums for. These are our pet lambs and we bring them into the Animal Croft and bottle feed them. It's a great opportunity for our customers to learn more about our sheep and to see our adorable lambs up close.
Looking after the fields also takes a lot of time. We make sure that the fences are intact and that walls haven't been knocked down. We also fertilise the fields with fruit and veg waste from the shop, to make sure we have lush and tasty green grass for the sheep. The sheep also like to help us to keep our fruit and veg waste to a minimum.
We like to rotate the fields that the sheep are in. We'll let a field rest from grazing to allow the grass to grow back. This way the sheep always have access to fresh green grass, it's their favourite! This is another reason why we like to hand feed the sheep. If they are friendly, they are much easier to move around. A shake of the feed bucket and they come running.
In Summer we mow the long grass ready for haylage in Winter. It must be a lovely dry day so that the hay can be wrapped, it must not be wet or it spoils quickly. Sometimes it's all hands on deck before the weather changes. Farming isn't easy!
