EACH month in The Westmorland Gazette’s farming pages, we present a fascinating insight into life as a sheep farmer in Cumbria.

It’s all thanks to Jayne Knowles, who farms at High Borrow Bridge Farm, Selside, near Kendal, who wants to give the public a glimpse of what farming really entails.

The family farm has 1,100 sheep and 60 suckler cows, and far from being a nine-to-five job (“more like 5am to 11pm,” says Jayne), hard work is the name of the game, but fun is still very much a part of life for Mrs Knowles and her farming family.

And in this week’s special festive edition, Jayne shows us what the build-up to Christmas is like on a South Lakeland farm… Tupping – mating – is still ongoing at the farm, so checking and marking the boys is one of the main jobs in December.

By now we have all the tups running with the sheep. The sheep are sorted again now and the older sheep go back to the fell.

We keep the shearlings – the two year olds – down, and some of the poorer condition older sheep, this is so we can get them used to eating hay and feed.

It is important in later pregnancy that all the sheep eat supplementary feed, as it contains vitamins and energy that they will need to produce strong lambs, and plenty of milk to feed them.

The fat lambs have to feed day and night too, as there is hardly any goodness in the grass now. The lambs are all outside, so they are fed in creep feeders, and the hay is put in hayracks.

The problem of feeding this early in the winter is the silage and the hay has to last until the spring.

Meanwhile, we have to watch the feet on all sheep all the time in case they develop foot rot and the particularly nasty digital dermatitis – a form of foot rot that spreads like wild fire and is very painful to the sheep.

The fat lambs need to have their belly wool taken off so that they keep clean, and the cows are all happy and warm in their sheds.

Going back to what I mentioned earlier about the problems which are caused by the snow, we have to feed all the sheep as they cannot get to the grass.

So we need to round up the sheep and tups more often, because they don’t like moving around in deep snow so, if we didn’t get them together, there would be sheep that wouldn’t get tupped. Typical males – they like it handed on a plate. Only kidding, chaps!

As you can imagine, it all takes extra time on top of what is already a busy time of year. Last week, when the A6 was closed, due to ten to 12 inches of snow, we had motorists driving up and leaving their cars anywhere, so they could go in to the fields to sledge.

This is all well and good but we had gathered in the sheep and given them hay, and people just chased them away because they wanted to sledge. It is annoying.

Plus, people should bear in mind that not all land is in ‘right to roam’.

Anyway must get on – I think the mince pies are ready!

A very Merry Christmas to you all and a Happy New Year, Jayne