We visited Easter Craigduckie Farm near Dunfermline on a sunny April day to see how the Fife farming family copes with the lambing season.
Katie Roberts is as delighted as Courier photographer Kim Cessford and I are that the sun is shining but she is quick to assure me that this isn’t typical lambing weather.
“Last year it was horizontal rain,” she recalls, “and it’s quite common to have snow – lambing snow we call it.”
“We certainly got it last year and we are all just thinking this is too good to be true.” she says, as she indicates the blue skies.
This time last year, farmers lambing all over Courier country were contending with the wettest spring on record.
The cold, wet conditions not only made for a miserable lambing experience, but they are more challenging in terms of taking care of ewes and new-born lambs.
Katie explains that around 1,500 ewes lamb each season at Easter Craigduckie: “if the lambs are out in the wet constantly they can’t dry out and risk hypothermia.”
The family ended up renting sheds from surrounding farms to keep their ewes and lambs out of the elements.
A family affair at Easter Craigduckie
Mark and Katie Roberts farm at Easter Craigduckie where they live with sons Lewis, 13, and Logan, 10.
Mark and Katie have taken on the running of the farm since Mark’s parents Brian and Heather retired.
The family also rent land on two other farms, where Mark is currently busy calving Hereford cross and Limousine cross cattle.
At Easter Craigduckie, the focus is on sheep, with herds of Welsh mules (Bluefaced Leicester rams crossed with the Beulah ewes), and 500 Shetland sheep.
Katie explains that Mark favours the Welsh mules: “They are not common in this area but he likes the lambs’ longer bodies and tight coats.”
Seasonal workers worth their weight in gold on Fife farm
Katie and Mark also have seasonal help from Quianne Reijnen, Lynn Ferguson and Jamie White with another student starting soon.
Quianne, a farm sustainability consultant, has done five seasons at Easter Craigduckie. She works the 2pm to 2am shift.
She takes a week ‘off’ her day job to come and work on the farm each spring.
“I don’t think my colleagues really get it, though,” she laughs, “they always wish me a relaxing week off!”
She has a veterinary background, which makes her an invaluable member of the team.
Local lass Lynn, 18, has been helping out with the lambing since she was just 12. She lives on a neighbouring beef and arable farm and hopes to study agriculture at SRUC. Lynn works 5am to 5pm.
On the 7am to 10pm shift is agriculture student Jamie White, 21, who is studying at the SRUC’s Oatridge campus near Broxburn.
Jamie, Lynn and Quianne are obviously more than just employees. They become part of the extended Roberts family as they work and share meals together.
Jamie also stays on the farm to help manage the unsociable hours.
Everyone heads to the farm cottage for lunch. Overalls and boots are left at the kitchen door, ready to be pulled back on.
Lunchtime doesn’t seem to be much of a break for Katie, though, as she sets about feeding the workers, checking emails and making phone calls.
She also has half an eye on the live images relayed from the sheds in case any of the ewes are in difficulty.
Oh, and she is in charge of bookings for the two shepherd’s huts that have welcomed visitors to the farm for several years.
Round-the-clock work at Easter Craigduckie
Each pregnant ewe is kept in a different part of a huge shed according to the number of lambs she is expecting. There are large enclosures for mums due to have single, twin and triplet lambs.
As Katie and I chat, there is calm activity all around us. Everyone is just getting on with their work.
No sooner has a lamb (or two or three) been born than they are moved to a pen in a different shed to stay with mum for a day to make sure all is well.
“They come in here until they are dry and we can tell that mum loves them and has enough food for them,” explains the farmer’s wife.
Once the ewe and her lamb are deemed happy and healthy they can head out onto the grass.
“We just go round four times a day and check all the lambs in the pens: morning, lunch, teatime and bedtime.
“We feel their tummies to make sure they are full.”
Some of the newborns need a little more attention than others. Perhaps because the mother rejects a lamb or they have had a tricky birth.
Katie points out a ewe with twins who has been tethered in her pen.
“This one is tied up because she doesn’t love both the lambs – even though they are both hers,” explains Katie.
“She has loads of milk but she just butts one of them, maybe it just smells different, or it bites her, I don’t know what the reason is.”
When a pen has been vacated it needs to be mucked out and disinfected to make it ready for the next new family.
All of the straw is taken out and loaded onto the John Deere tractor deftly driven by 13-year old Lewis.
Both of Mark and Katie’s boys love the lambing season at Craigduckie and as soon as they are home from school it’s a rush to get changed and out to the sheds.
Bringing new life onto the farm
The ewes have been busy while the workers were having lunch and there is a little flurry of deliveries.
Mostly, the ewes get on with the job by themselves.
“Even after all these years, seeing a baby lamb being born is amazing,” Katie says. “just seconds later they can be up on their feet and feeding.”
A nocturnal trip to the vet
Of course, no matter how experienced the team is, things do go wrong when ewes are in labour: “We had a trip to the vet last night,” says Katie.
“Quianne was lambing her just before tea and the lamb was just stuck, it wouldn’t move. They had all the gel in but we had to phone the vets.”
“The first lamb didn’t make it but the next lamb was alive and mum was fine.”
A lamb called Tiny
One of the pens is labelled VIP and when the ewe moves to show off her baby it’s easy to see why: a super-cute mini black lamb peeks out from behind his mum.
I can’t resist the temptation and ask if I can give him a cuddle – the little creature is light as a feather with four dangly legs. His gorgeous tightly curled coat adds to the cuteness factor and it’s hard to hand him back.
His mum is a Shetland cross, which is a small, hardier breed that usually lambs outdoors.
Out to pasture
One of fields closest to the barn is getting busier with ewes and their lambs.
Katie looks at the happy, healthy sheep and muses: “This is the pinnacle – the moment that makes it all worthwhile.
“Seeing the healthy lambs out on the grass with the sun on their backs is what it’s all about.”
Conversation