By Tria Stebbing.

In little over a week, we have seen the field change from late autumn to winter. The seasons that were not so long ago confused, now seem to have reset themselves to the norm. Two weeks ago, over the field, we marvelled at the leaves still on the oak trees and the grass clearly still growing to feed the now resident deer. Today we visited the field shrouded in freezing fog, the leaves on the ground and a very cold winter picture.
Again, the sheep have stayed on their summer grazing fields as there is plenty of grass to go around. The flock has grown in size and it would now take several trips to move them all about. Humphrey the ram has just been on his yearly holiday to the girls’ field and it will be a few weeks before we know if his holidays will produce lambs for us next spring.

The different groups of sheep now have established their own hierarchy, and Humphrey being away has led to Lychett Boy wandering around like a lost sheep looking for his friend. Like people, sheep believe there is safety in numbers. When they lose a sheep–friend they notice and may even show signs of grief – equally when sheep are isolated, they get lonely and can get depressed, losing interest in eating and grazing.
We have noticed that our sheep are very good at showing us how they are feeling by their body language, facial expression and position of their ears. Disney Princess recently had another sore foot and we found her on her own in the field, head down and ears back – she looks at you, talking with her eyes, trying to tell you she is hurting.

It is thought the sheep’s brain has similar properties to our own, particularly the basal ganglia, the part of the brain for decision making, learning and forming habits. Sheep form flocks and follow each other, forming loyal friendships, and will fight other rams to protect the weak in fights – maybe they show more human traits than we thought and they lead by example.
One of our rams, Jed, seems to have a permanently grazed head from butting at the other ram – he either thinks he is dominant or that he needs to defend his friends.

The cold weather has meant we are now feeding the bales we harvested in summer. This year’s ewe lambs are a suspicious lot and when we took them their bale yesterday, ran away as fast as they could up away and over the hill, intelligence obviously lacking on this occasion. They are suspicious of lots of things, except the trailer. On this occasion we think they have worked out that whenever they go in the trailer, it is to move fields to better grass, so we never struggle to load them, which is good for us.
Christmas Day will mean a few treats – Brussels sprouts are their absolute favourite, but only a few. We spend time with them on the big day, reflecting back on the previous year.

This year we lost Gizmo to being cast and Gemma to mastitis, but we gained a cracking set of ram lambs in King, Keane, Kaylen, Kasabian and Keiser, and lovely ewe lambs in KP and her sisters.
‘L’ is the breed letter for naming next year, so Larry will obviously be up there with the best.
Happy Christmas and a productive New Year to you all, especially to our fellow smallholders, may you rest and be thankful for at least five minutes over the festive period.