After a week with three sets of twins lambing became intense.

Of the 504 ewes that went out with the rams 485 were scanned as in lamb. Between Monday to Friday last week 325 ewes lambed, there are now only 160 left to give birth.

That gives an average of 65 births each day. Lambing is progressing well, there have been few losses and the lambs are big and strong.

Every lamb born has been fitted with an ear tag which only has the holding number shown on it. These tags are being used solely to identify the farm of origin as they will all be sold when finished within the next 12 months.

Hopefully some will be ready to leave Manor Farm for the early season lamb, which tends to premium sale time.There is however one black ram lamb, which will remain on the farm to be a teaser (vasectomised ram).

During the day Kevin has plenty of help provided by Ian, Jenny, Melissa, Francis and Marcus. But this year he has not employed a night lamber.

This means that Kevin is on duty for the nights while lambing is so intense. He has developed a routine of going to bed at midnight; getting up again at 3 am to check all the ewes before going back to bed for another couple of hours.

When a ewe is seen to be in labour, one of the lightweight lambing rings made by Francis, is placed around her. This ensures she is not disturbed by any of the other ewes and enables all the helpers to quickly see when a birth is not progressing well.

If this is the case the ewe can easily be given assistance. Once the lambs are born the ewes and lambs are moved to their nursery accommodation. Ewes with single lambs go into pens of six ; those with twins or triplets are penned individually with their offspring. If quads or more are born a lamb may be put into a creche, as ewes only have two teats and although some can suckle three,it is not the norm. Usually Melissa keeps an eye on the individual pens, topping up any lamb that looks as if it needs extra milk.

Once Kevin and Melissa are satisfied that a ewe has properly bonded with her lambs she is moved with her offspring to one of the pods. This year ewes with singles are being kept in one pod, twins in another. So far the creche has seven lambs being bottle fed and five from multiple births have been adopted onto other ewes.

At the moment most ewes and lambs are being cared for in pens of six or individual pens.

There is lots of work to do. Giving each ewe a concentrate feed twice a day is one task. They also need fresh water all day, provided in buckets. Then there are small haynets to fill twice a day. All these tasks are in addition to checking lambing ewes and moving them around.

Just remembered there's also bedding up,a daily chore.

It is helpful this season that not only are the lambs big and strong, but that the ewes generally have a good supply of milk. However a few of the ewes have needed an injection of oxytocin, given to help milk let down.

The only other job done during the week was to bring all the ewes , due to lamb in March, back to Manor Farm. They now occupy a field next to the pods and have access to the last one, where there is ad-lib hay on offer.