Falkland Islands’ Sabbatical

1. Lamb Marking

On Kingsford Valley Farm, lamb marking usually occurs on the holiday weekend to commemorate Battle Day (which falls on 8 December). This process has three or four stages, depending on the sex of the lamb.
1. The male lambs not selected to be breeding rams are given a rubber ring.
2. The year’s coloured tag is put into one ear (left or right depending on the sex). Those selected as breeding rams have a different and larger style tag to distinguish them.
3. The untagged ear has the station mark cut into its edge.
4. The tails are cut off using a cauterizing cutter.

Pre-lamb marking sustenance

With ewes and lambs having been gathered and penned, food and drinks are broken out to recharge batteries.

Lamb marking

Lambs are separated from their mothers, by drafting, and moved into the holding pen ready for marking while the ewes are released and counted. The lambs are held legs up and are carried along through each stage of the process before being released back out into the open. It is a noisy time as both lambs and ewes are constantly calling for each other. In the vast majority of cases, they do eventually pair up again. Lambs that don’t are caught, if possible, and hand reared as orphans.

Tail docking

This is the final stage before release. The tool used is gas fired so that, as the tail is removed, the docked end is cauterized and sealed. It does make the lambs jump a little but they soon recover.

2. Miscellaneous Activities

Feeding Sama

An orphan lamb being given its breakfast. This one was named Sama after the South Atlantic Medal Association which was formed after the 1982 war.

Grub Up!

Eventually, the lambs are weaned off the bottle and onto the feeder so they can start to fend for themselves. The milk strength is gradually weakened so the lambs are encouraged to start eating grass with less reliance on the expensive powdered milk.

Fencing - Hammering in the staples

Fencing is a time consuming process. It is a two man job and the posts are positioned by ‘eye’ to line up with the distant end post. Surprisingly, I managed to end up with straight fence lines! Once in, staples are put into the posts and through which the wire is run. We worked on using five runs of wire to form the fence. Miles are walked up and down hill during this process.

Fencing - putting on the battens

Having run the wires, to strengthen the fence and ensure sheep cannot squeeze through or under them, battens are fastened on to ‘tie’ the wires together. This was mainly done on my knees to try and cut down on back ache but ended up with sore knees!! This particular photo was taken on a timer as there was only me on the hillside. It was a bit of a run and a jump to get back onto the other side of the fence! This should give you some idea of the remoteness of the terrain. Mt Usborne is in the distance.