Lambs!

It's lambing time! Hoorah!  

I was lucky enough to visit a local farm at the weekend to see these cute animals up close and personal. What a treat!

Donning wellies and wrapping up warm against the icy wind, my family and I excitedly made our way towards the sound of bleating in the distance. 

We headed straight to the pens where we were welcomed by lots of wobbly lambs that were only a couple of hours old with their tired looking mothers. 

Some lambs bravely and unsteadily made their first steps towards us full of curiosity (one comically hopping into a bucket of water on the way)!

Others...had some sleep to catch up on! Ah - so soft, cute and cuddly!

But most were just hungry!

What name do you think we gave the one below?!

Unfortunately we were not lucky enough to see any being born...but maybe next time.

Next stop was the cade or orphan lambs. 

These are lambs whose mothers usually have 3 or more and don't have enough milk to feed them all.

They were slightly more lively than the lambs in the previous pens and all of them skipped over to us to say hello. 

Being constantly hungry they playfully fought over the "Shepherdesses"  (Buckets of milk fitted with teats, which saves the farmer a lot of work hand rearing them).

At one point they seemed to be very interested in a pair of legs and came nuzzling about with their soft noses!

Realising that we could quite easily play with them all day, we tore ourselves away and squinting in the bright, Spring sunshine we crossed the farmyard. 

Mid-way we noticed a mischievous dog naughtily stealing some of the milk for the lambs...When he turned around to face us his adorable nose was covered in milk but he scampered off before we could take a photo! 

Finally we met the Ewes that were patiently waiting to give birth. 

We checked to see if we could see any signs of impending lambing.

This can vary between ewes - some go off food, some stand alone, some stretch their necks, some paw the ground and are restless but well....erm....on this occasion they all just looked......pregnant!  

Seeing no obvious signs of lambing we decided to leave it to the experts (!!) and stepped back out of the quiet and peaceful barns and into the sunshine.

Ah ha! Look who we'd found! We had caught up with our now sleepy escapee laying down on a lovely seat in the sun! 

Feeling in need of a cup of tea and a bite to eat ourselves we paid for some eggs on the way out, cheerfully said our goodbyes to the farmers and happily chattered about the lambs all the way home!