THE past week started with temperatures close to zero, which then rose, fell back and ended above freezing. There has been no rain, but most of the days have been rather gloomy. Whilst mid-week the sun shone to give a few pleasant days, it was noticeable that the days are getting longer.

When walking around the farm it is quiet and quite uneventful, although the field fares have returned, to be seen in large flocks in our fields. Field fares are a member of the thrush family, which migrate here in winter to enjoy a feast of seasonal berries. A lone one has made its home in our garden, finding our fallen apples quite delicious. Their plumage is quite distinctive with pale grey feathers over their head and rump. Their yellowy breast is streaked with black, whilst wings and tails are dark.

All Kevin's pregnant ewes have now been brought into the Leaze Farm barns.The ewes were left to settle for a few days before they were scanned to find out how many lambs each one is carrying. Scanning the 1,200 ewes took almost two days, during which time they were gathered in a yard, before they made their way, in turn, though a race into a holding pen where the scanner was working. As the sheep were scanned they were marked with a colour depending on whether they were carrying singles, twins or multiples.

This makes it easy to split them into the three groups so that each group can be fed the appropriate ration. This action is to help prevent 'twin lamb' disease a condition caused by a shortage of blood glucose. A stressful event, such as a sudden change of diet, a change in the weather or painful conditions such as foot problems, can lead to twin lamb disease. This is a reason the ewes have been settled into their new surroundings and slowly introduced to their altered feed ration two months before they are due to lamb. It has been shown that there is a higher mortality from lambs in underfed ewes, which is more marked in multiples than twins and those more than singles. This is why the ewes will be fed according to the number of lambs they are carrying. The majority of ewes will have twins, some singles and a few will give birth to three or more, but the ideal is twin births.

Very few ewes were found to be barren and these will be sold as culls, but the number of singles was slightly higher than one would hope probably due to the late, cold, wet spring and hot dry summer.

Richard and I recently stayed for a few days with our daughter Adele and her family on Chuggaton Farm, near Barnstaple. The weather was very still and overcast during our visit, but at least the lack of freezing weather made travelling very easy. We spent a most enjoyable time with our family in Devon, going for walks, looking around the farm and eating lots of delicious meals together. One day Richard's Uncle John and his wife Sue joined us for lunch. Despite not being able to get around as easily as he could, Uncle John was determined to walk to a vantage point from where he could see the cows, showing great interest in what Steve and Adele had done to improve the cubicle barn. The cows did look very happy and we looked on as Adele and grandchildren Dominic and Bethany gathered the cows for Steve to milk, before scraping the slurry from the yard, cleaning the cubicle beds and spreading a layer of fresh sawdust onto the mattresses. Bethany even gave several of the cows a cuddle, as most of them are very tame.

After this I sat in the tractor with Dominic while he put some silage into mangers for the milking cows and heifers (young female cows), before giving the heifer calves some haylage and concentrate pellets.