Here we are at one of the loveliest
times of the year. The apple blossom is out and the cow parsley
and hedge garlic are adding a sprinkling of white to the fresh
green of the hedge row bottoms. This morning I caught my first
whiff of may blossom so all you elderly folk of an earlier generation
can now cast your clouts. [ I've
always imagined "clouts" to be long sleeved woolly vests and long
johns, though I have never been certain].
Neil and the livestock team have just spent two very busy days,
picking up the newly arrived blue tongue vaccine from our vet and then
collecting all our scattered ruminants
from both the farm and the outlying grazings in order to run them through the sheep shed
and the cattle pens to give them the very welcome protection against
blue tongue. Though I say "protection", nobody really knows if it
is going to be effective. In the meantime we will watch all the
animals closely and keep our fingers crossed.
After Neil had spent all of Friday vaccinating over 140 sheep, on
Saturday we received a two page letter from the Ministry telling us
that the vaccine was about to become available.
The vaccine dose is 1 ml per animal with the cattle and alpacas getting
a second jab later on. We have also invested in an insecticide
spray for the cattle which claims to kill any virus bearing midges when
they contact the hair of a sprayed animal. Thus we set ourselves
up with the spray equipment, hundreds of needles, 1ml syringes
and set to work.
The first batch of animals to be brought in were the Easter lambing
ewes with their lambs.
...first batch to be brought in...
Each batch then had to be moved through
the race in the sheep shed and injected when they arrived at the small
handling pen at the end of the race, with their individual ear tag
numbers being recorded as they passed along.
....moved through the race.....
....the small handling pen.....
Once the larger groups had been
successfully vaccinated, there remained the oddments we have in various
spots around the farm like the two retired rams who live on what once
must have been a respectable lawn some 30 years or so ago and the ewes
and rams we have on a spell of R & R in two convalescent stables.
...ewes in a convalescent stable... [ Regular readers will recognise the ewe
with the caesarian stitching that is taking time to heal ]
Having successfully
vaccinated all the sheep at Baylham House, the cattle were brought in, penned and one by one, crushed, vaccinated
and sprayed.
...cattle...crushed and vaccinated...
...and sprayed.
To close this news page on a cheerful note I will quote [ the
second time for some of you ] a remark that was supposedly heard when
the blue tongue crisis was at its height last year.
" I hear that this blue
tooth is spread by midgets"
