As we start tupping in early November, now’s the time to make sure all our sheep are healthy and ready for the winter. We MOT’d the boys, making sure their feet were in good condition, and giving them all a dose of wormer, flukicide and a vitamin drench. It’s important that the tups are in good body condition and have good feet, as they have to serve about 50 ewes each in the space of 6 weeks. If they go lame they may lose interest, and if they aren’t well fed at the beginning they may not have enough energy to do a good job. Our boys all looked good and were raring to go.

Next we brought all our ewes in, and gave them the same treatment. Again, making sure they are in good body condition at this point. Too thin and they may not carry a lamb through the winter, too fat and their fertility could be compromised. We put a mark on the back of each ewe’s head indicating which tup she would be going with. It should save us time later when we need to split the flock into separate fields for tupping.

At this point in the year we start to get a bit impatient, and are getting excited about next year. On more than one occasion one of us would say to the other ‘Maybe we should put the tups in early, just a week or so…’ We will wait though, as we lamb outside we need the weather to be on our side, and there’s more chance of that in April than in March!