Lambing Season with Rachel Murphy

We caught up with Rachel, our ambassador and competitve Wool Handler, to chat about the exciting lambing season on her farm.

Q: Tell us about the sheep you have on your farm?

A: My dad works on a farm estate where we have mules and texel/mules. We also have sheep of our own which are Lanark blackface.

Q: When would you normally start lambing?

A: Lambing would normally begin around the 17th of March or just after.

Q: Tell us about a typical day lambing.

A: We lamb indoors with around 900/1000 ewes between the estate and our own. Lambing time is a very busy time we have 3 people who lamb throughout the day and 1 person at night. I would do the nightshift which is a 12-hour shift. Some days there can be between 60 to 80 ewes lamb, which keeps everyone on their toes.

Q: What do you enjoy about lambing?

A: I started lambing when I was 9 years old. When I was younger, we were always out helping dad at lambing time, at the weekends and then when we came home from school. I just think it’s a great time of the year, lambs out skipping in the fields and better weather arriving.

Q: What are the challenges?

A: The biggest challenge in lambing is when the weather is bad, due to it been hard getting the lambs out to the fields.