School Day With A Difference!

It being mock S.A.T.s week for the year nine’s my week had changed a lot already, Wednesday’s timetable changed yet again and now I wasn’t even going to be at school! I was asked to work with some of our students at college, fair enough, I was told I didn’t even have to go to school first, fabulous when I thought they meant the college I’d been to previously with other students.

Not this time though, these students are doing agriculture so I’m to meet them at an Auction House … I’m unsure of my whereabouts until I get there and it says on the side of the building that it IS also an Agricultural College.

I was told I was there to help the students with their course work but even so I wore jeans and took a packed lunch … just in case being a bit of a thing with me lol The gentleman teaching the boys hadn’t booked a computer room and there wasn’t one free, but more to the point it’s lambing season and he’s a farmer. It was actually a good job I’d been sent because the college minibus wouldn’t start, four of the lads went in the farmer’s car and two came with me … so much for doing less mileage this day!

 

When we got to the farm the farmer needed to check the ewes, no lambs had been born before he’d left and there were a few due. The lads all climbed into the big holding pen, the farmer invited me in too and pointed out a gate. I dumped my stuff and went in … the lads, on instruction from the farmer, got huge long blue plastic glove on each, I demurred. It was for checking inside the sheep. The one he had cornered was expecting triplets. Then and there the farmer and two of the students helped the ewe birth three lambs … more or less just as it shows in the you-tube clip below … it was the first time I’d ever seen a lamb born … and I was so close!

Lambs born the previous day had plastic macs put on them, I helped, and they were taken out into the field, with their mothers following. There was a dead sheep to one side, when I said I was okay with it the farmer explained to the students what had happened ~ he hadn’t wanted to go into ucky details with a lady present, bless.

Much to the annoyance of the two students I was there to help they had to spend most of the day inside the farm house with me doing their coursework … if I am sent to the college again I will make sure I have my laptop with me, the course work needs to be printed out but no computer! They couldn’t read the question sheet the farmer had prepared so I read it to them, wrote it out in an easy to read form and together we answered the questions, their farm knowledge plus my sentence/spelling knowledge. It was interesting, they’ve been coming here for nearly two years now, last spring they chose ten lambs each and have been involved in each stage of their care, immunisations, breeding et al.

Once we’d done all we could we went back outside again. I watched the lads do more farm yard type jobs and then helped with closing the gate quickly behind them when they moved another new born lamb out of the main pen area, across the yard into a smaller pen. Stood a bit too close and got umbilical cord on my jeans but that’s what the washing machine is for, and I was pleased with myself for not making a ‘girly fuss’

The farmer had had more triplets than he had been able to stick the extras with ewes with only one lamb, he had six in a small pen by themselves with a feeding bucket. Only three now, the other three have gone home with students to be bottle brought up, they were so cute with their little tails spinning … which wont be spinning as much for long … they put the bands around them before leaving so the lambs wont have such long tails for long

Oh and if I’m asked to go help with the course work again as well as taking my laptop and wearing jeans again I’ll also take my wellingtons. I was lucky that it was a dry day otherwise it would have been worse

For more sheep info