The Farmer And His Sheep
Sheep farmers in the Yorkshire Dales in the north of England face a short spring and summer season.
Therefore it is important for them to put their lambs out in the fields as soon as the new spring grass starts to come through so that the lambs can benefit from the fresh young shoots.
All About Gestation
The average gestation period for a ewe is 147 days but, unlike humans, sheep only have an average of 17 days in the year when they are in estrus, as the breeding cycle is called.
Furthermore, within that 17 days, they are only receptive to being mated for approximately 24 to 36 hours!
So getting the timing of the lambing right that far in advance of spring is a challenge for the farmers.
A Heady Brew
Now fast forward to spring. As we wrote about when we visited Hurries Farm in the Dales two years ago, once one ewe goes into labour, the others in the flock are affected by the heady brew of hormones.
The result is that all the flock gives birth over a very intensive one-or-two-day period.
The Lambs Are Let Into The Fields Soon After They Are Born
The farmer lets the ewes and their lambs loose into the fields as soon as possible, and the two lambs in this photograph are just 24 hours old.
I photographed them with their mother yesterday in a field near the village of Burnsall deep in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
I hope to go back to the Dales in the next week or two, and I expect to see many more lambs in the fields that fill the valleys there.
