Sheep farming definitely runs in Gordon Fairbairn’s family.  The shepherd at Thorndale Farm follows in a long line of sheep farmers and has a wealth of experience to fall back on which is just as well as he has 1100 ewes in his care this lambing season.  With the first lamb arriving early last weekend (March 18), we grabbed some time with Gordon before things get too hectic which they most definitely will in the next two or three weeks!

This is Gordon’s third season at Thorndale Farm having previously worked on the neighbouring Hilcot Farm.  Now, with the aid of Pat, he looks after 1000 acres of grazing land, home to 20 rams as well as the ewes which are a mixture of three breeds – Mules, Suffolk Crosses and Masham the latter of which are the biggest and also the original breed at Thorndale.

With only a few lambs being born at this stage, it is very much the calm before the storm but there is no doubt that Gordon is prepared for the onslaught, “We have each shed divided into singles, doubles and triples and they’re each divided further depending on which week they are due to lamb.  We put the triples next to the singles so that we can move lambs who need more milk onto the ewes with only one lamb. 

“Once they’ve lambed they move into small individual pens where we mark them, treat their navels so they dry up, ring them (to remove tails and testicles) and supervise the suckling.  Then they move onto bigger pens of about 12 ewes and lambs so they’re used to being in a group before heading out to the field.   It’s a pretty rapid process as we need to keep freeing up pens as more and more lambs are born.”  Gordon’s work is still not done even when they’re out in the field as he has to keep checking to make sure they’re still ‘mothered up’ and haven’t got lost from one another which can often happen with the young mothers who aren’t quite sure what they’re doing.”

The particularly active time for lambing is after feeding but there are lambs being born continually and once in full swing it’s all hands on deck.  There are five people continually working including George, Gordon’s son, with one person on night duty.  Commenting on the method of indoor lambing, Gordon said, “It’s obviously pretty labour and feed intensive and in fact more and more farms are reverting back to the traditional method of outdoor lambing.  You need hardier sheep for that and you also tend to lose a lot more.  This way, having them indoors we produce more lambs and they’re big and healthy so we find that tends to outweigh the extra costs associated with indoor lambing.”

However Gordon thinks Thorndale Farm is likely to follow the trend in the future, “We may well look to outdoor lambing which would mean we would have to change breeds.  We are already phasing out the Mashams as they’re just too big and therefore eat more feed and take a lot of handling.”

Whilst it hasn’t felt too warm in the last few days at Thorndale, the mild winter has been good news for Gordon, “The grass has grown a lot earlier which is great for the summer and means they can stay out longer.  Last year the dry weather was awful but we hope to get most of our lambs off to the abbatoir by the end of the summer.  If the grass is poor it means we have to bring them indoors and they’re not sold until September or October.”

There is no doubt that Gordon is a true professional so the lads in the yard had to give him a bit of ribbing about ‘the mistake’, a lamb born outside to one of a ewe lamb not expected to be put to a ram until next season.  So how did it slip past Gordon’s expert eye?!  “We do have some male lambs whose testicles don’t drop (known as rigs), I usually spot them but I obviously didn’t remove this one in time before he had his way so we were quite shocked to see this little lamb up in the top field.  The funny thing is he was born with the same condition so it’s obviously a case of ‘like father like son!’

Gordon’s enthusiasm for what he does is infectious, he has a wealth of knowledge and clearly has the expert’s touch when it comes to a tricky lambing or trying to get a lamb to suckle making sure they get the best start in life.  It’s clear that Gordon who spends so much time with these animals does regard them with some affection, “Even with this many, some you definitely remember, they have certain quirks.  They’re hard work but it’s really satisfying when I see a ewe and her lambs head off into the field looking happy and healthy.”

Gordon obviously loves the outdoor life and it’s something he’s passed on to his two sons.  George is at Harper Adams college and intends to go down the machinery route of agriculture whilst his younger son Jack works as a green keeper on a golf course.” 

Having spent his whole life working with sheep, starting out on the same farm as his father, Gordon has seen quite a few changes in farming, “I suppose the biggest change is the gradual disappearance of small family farms.  Nowadays you have to be big to survive so it’s no wonder so many smaller farms are having to diversify.  You also used to have more time on your hands.  Now I have so many other things to take care of apart from the sheep; the paperwork, reports, getting the haylage cropped in the spring and I even do a bit of combining in late summer on my old farm.”   

So dare we ask what happens when Gordon’s precious lambs leave Thorndale, “We start selling them in June and they generally are bought by an abbatoir in Merthyr Tydfil in Wales or one at Cardington in Bedford which supplies Marks & Spencer.”  Working so closely with the lambs, the obvious question is whether Gordon likes lamb, “I don’t eat it.  My father never ate it either, there’s just something about the smell which puts me off!!”  Perhaps it isn’t surprising but there’s no doubt that Gordon is missing out on some top quality lamb, lovingly reared at Thorndale Farm.