From the newsroom to the farm: A weekend lambing in Somerset

  • ITV News' India Wentworth spent the day on a farm in Somerset

I grew up on a farm in North Yorkshire and my favourite part of the year was lambing. I would always spend the half term holiday helping, and then go as much as I could alongside school. Every chance I had - I was there. 

Fast forward a few years and I work behind the scenes at ITV West Country, but when the opportunity came up to go lambing on a farm in Somerset, I couldn't resist. 

I headed to Cheddar for a couple of days to join Rosie Bloor on her farm. She has a flock lambing indoors and outdoors.

Now that we are into the warmer months, although definitely not drier, the option of outdoor lambing is something many farmers choose to do, but this was an element completely new to me. 

I soon settled into the routine though, and it all came rushing back to me. 

Lambing was always my favourite part of farming.

The first task for the day was getting on top of everything from the night before. 

One of the first tasks was to cover the new lambs' umbilical cord in iodine so it dries up and snaps off. This is to stop the lamb picking up infections.

Then we gave everyone their breakfast. You need to be keeping the ewes fit and healthy so they produce plenty of milk for the lambs so they get silage, which is like a nicer version of hay, and water. Those having or who had had three lambs get some pellets too for extra nutrients.

One kick left me with a very orange hand covered in Iodine.

Alongside all these jobs you can get distracted by new arrivals. There are a few signs you can look out for to tell you a lamb is on the way. The ewe will:

  • Pace around scratching the ground, creating a bit of a nest.

  • Appear very restless - standing up and sitting down over and over again.

  • Licking their lips means they’re preparing to lick their lambs dry which is so important for the early bonding process.

  • Push out a water bag. This really does look like a water balloon full of water fluid.

  • In the final stages of labour, the ewe will get on the ground and start pushing.

The ewe licks her fresh lambs dry, which is part of the important bonding process.

Ideally the ewe will do it all themselves, but sometimes you do need to step in and help.

The lamb should be coming with its front legs and head first, but sometimes they could be presenting differently (tangled up with a sibling, leg or head back, coming backwards) so you need to help the ewe.

The head was back on this occasion so I needed to step in and help.

Once the lamb is born the ewe will lick it dry, and within minutes the lambs are on their feet.

Although I’ve helped on my family farm since I could walk, there were many new sides of lambing for me to pick up in Somerset with Rosie as my teacher. 

Wet adoption using a bucket and salt was new to me.

There are various adoption techniques you can use if you have lots of singles and lots of triplets. You want everyone to have two lambs because that’s all they can feed long-term.

Rosie introduced me to a new version wet adoption - using a bucket and salt. You can make the ewe believe she has two lambs instead of one by covering the adopted lamb in the ewe's delivery fluids and salt.

The salt help the ewe want to lick the lamb and form the important bond between then.

Outdoor lambing has its ups and downs.

The perks of outdoor lambing are that the ewes can lamb themselves (most of the time) and then you can leave them to it. 

Occasionally the lambs need to be brought indoors and it can prove tricky to catch them.

Catching the lambs and ewes outside was exhausting and took a lot of running. I do have a new found love of a crook now though.  

You can watch the extended version on ITV X here.