Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Today we had the sheep sheared: this is the process of cutting off the sheep's wool and it is done for two main reasons: one so the sheep don't get too hot and two as they are far less likely to get 'flystrike' (this is where flies lay eggs in a mucky part of sheep's fleece and the maggots that hatch then burrow into the sheep and eat its skin - urggghhh! see 31st August for more). We are much earlier than last year but as the weather is so warm and likely to stay warm for a while we thought it was a good idea. The photos show the 'before' and 'after'. The before photo is actually from last year and shows Mrs Brown with one of last year's lambs (this was when we mated her with a brown ram and so got brown lambs). We say 'brown' but actually the lamb is black, as indeed is Mrs Brown in the second photo, all beautifully shorn. The natural colour of the wool is black but it is bleached by the sun as the lamb/sheep grows. Mrs Brown will be back to being Mrs 'Brown' (i.e. her wool will slowly go brown again) in a few weeks but hopefully not as scruffy!! Mrs White is also beautifully white again as opposed to a slightly 'off' white. They should both now feel a lot cooler as well as staying clean at their back ends...
The really funny thing is that when shorn, sheep often don't recognise each other: it is partly to do with sight but also smell as with most of the sheep's 'coat' having disappeared, they smell very different. Mrs Brown demonstrated this beautifully by head butting Mrs White in the side as if to say: 'who are you?' whilst the lambs were thoroughly confused for a while as they wondered what we had done with their mums!!
The shearing went well but unfortunately we have two poorly lambs at the moment. Mrs Brown's lovely ewe lamb went down with a very high temperature last night. It was 41.9°C (normal is 38.5-39.5°C)!! She has had pain relief and antibiotics and tonight it was down to 40.5°C so a definite improvement. She obviously has an infection somewhere but we don't know what is causing it plus she has not eaten as much as she should have done today so we need to continue to keep an eye on her. Her brother (the one born without an anus opening) is also suffering as this afternoon he managed to knock one of his growing horns. A little like us ripping a nail, there was a LOT of blood and probably a lot of pain as well. He has also had pain relief plus we sprayed the wound with some antibiotic spray to stop any infection.
And in other news the broody sitting on the ten remaining Orpington eggs has managed to break another one: she had lost two (which we blamed on magpies), but this one was down to her, albeit an accident (we assume).
A typical day on the smallholding then: some things going well, some not so well and a few things to worry about...