When we first bought our Suffolk ewes back in 2012, we purchased them from a local Suffolk stud. We purchased experienced ewes as we were inexperienced farmers and we wanted to give everyone the best chance at a healthy life. This meant our first ewes were a little older. Last year when our lambs were born, we ended up with 4 girls and 1 boy, so we decided to keep our farm bred girls and breed from them this year. Last year we moved 3 of the older girls onto another hobby farmer for them to have at least a couple of years more breeding from these lovely ewes. Our old ram was ready for retirement so we invested in a lovely stud ram from another local stud. We started this year with 5 new sheep and 2 of our original girls so we weren’t too sure what might happen!
But it turns out they knew what they were doing … so far we have had two sets of twins from our first-time mums and they are just perfect! Here they are being closely guarded by Bill and Ben the watchful alpacas:
It is another step towards being self-sufficient when we know we can breed good lambs which can, in turn, produce good lambs … We still have two of our maiden ewes that are pregnant, so it looks like it will be a good year for lambs!