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It is spring in Scotland. With the arrival of spring comes the busiest time of year for the farmers of this county. It is know as "lambing." The time of year the Scotland's millions of ewes are giving birth to new lambs. These baby sheep are definitely a crop in the sense their whole lives have been planned so they can end up on some consumer's dinner plate as leg of lamb or maybe lamb chops. Everything is carefully timed from the lamb's conception to the trip to market to maximize the farmer's income from this crop. Don't get me wrong just because the lambs are considered a crop that the farmer's of Scotland treat them with indifference. Scotland's farmers are conscientious shepherds. During the lambing season most Scottish farmers are up 24 hours. They are constantly making rounds to check if a ewe is having trouble giving birth or a new born needs assistance to get on their feet. The most critical issue is newborn baby lambs get a suck of their mother's milk as soon as possible. Without it they could die. Baby lambs are susceptible to wet and cold. It is heart breaking to see the infant lambs struggling to their feet shivering from the cold. The weather has been extremely wet and cold in Scotland this spring. The rainfall in April has set records every where. The farm where I was assisting friends with lambing lost twenty-one lambs in one day this week. I heard on the news yesterday that another farmer lost forty-five lambs in a day. It is devastating to see so many of the gentle little creatures die. Another side of lambing is taking care of lambs that have lost their mothers. Two common ways to approach this is if a ewe has lost her lamb and has plenty of milk her dead lamb is skinned and the skin is placed on an orphan lamb. The ewes identify their lambs by smell. After a few days the ewe comes to accept the baby as her own. If there is not a ewe available or the ewe rejects the lambs they are bottle feed by the humans. I have been fortunate to be involved in the bottle feeding of orphan lambs. You get extremely attached to your charges. It has always given me great joy pretending to be mother to baby sheep. Because I do not live on a sheep farm I have never had to go through the process of watching these "pets" be put with the other sheep and then sold. To me they are just pets and I name them etc. Lambing is a Scottish tradition but most of all it is a necessity for the survival of the farms and crofts. The lighthouse's neighboring crofters greet each other with "How is lambing?" Everyone is hoping for dryer weather and warmer temperatures and although I have no sheep I am praying that they will get what they need. Good by from Shetland, Sharma
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You can find more articles in the archive under Island Miniatures/Lighthouse Letters.
Book Signing If you order from this web site I will sign my new book for children, Moonbeam Cow, and "Scotland - The Complete Guide and Road Atlas", a beautiful book for which I did the text.
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