Ivy Cottage Self Catering Accomodation

16/04/2026

Happiness is an adoption finally working out and even sweeter when it took 10 days 🤷‍♂️. Cold strong westerly wind at Ivy cottage today but the neighbours calves sunbathed when they could on the odd occasion the sun broke through. We are past 2/3 of way through lambing now with over 60 lambs on the ground.

13/04/2026

Well it was a four seasons in the one day at Ivy cottage today and slow day on lamb arrivals . We had a lovely sunny morning ,squally showers and then super sized hailstones. Got some more lambs marked and outside for sunbathing , also good to see the quads mum coping well outside albeit with a squint in her head. Great to have the cottage guests helping out with the feeding and water buckets - always appreciated.

11/04/2026

When I bought my new tup lamb in September a wise old man tapped me on the shoulder and said “ you’ll regret that at lambing time boy - the lambs will have the same thick horns and give difficult births. Based on that I used him on my old Swaledale ewes and the horns are huge on the lambs like he said but not a problem for the Swaledales. This one just gave birth outside standing up no problem 👏👏and I’ve never seen such chunky horns on a lamb !
Sadly our quads never made 🥲it but the good news is the mum is so much better having got rid of that load that hopefully she can go outside on Monday.

09/04/2026

Remember the sheep from a couple of weeks ago that I found on her side one morning and it appeared she had a stroke. She had been scanned triplets and had been quite poorly really since , on her feet and eating a bit in the shed but with a squint in her neck and blind in one eye.
When I went up today she had a tiny dead lamb beside her and then gave birth to 3 more alive - quads!! We still have 2 alive but they are tiny as about 10 days premature 🥲. Almost 60 years lambing and quads a first for me.

07/04/2026

Great to get some lambs out today in the sunshine after the harsh weekend weather. Thought I’d get the electric fence up last night in preparation not realising Blindy wanted to play silly games and get all tangled up !!

06/04/2026

What a glorious frosty Easter Monday morning at Ivy Cottage after a really tough 24 hours overnight Saturday during storm Dave. The worst April snow I’ve seen up here with 3ft drifts through Saturday night before the snow turned sleetier and flattened it before morning. Thankfully no lambs arrived and all sheep now accounted for . We had no electricity from 11pm Saturday to 6pm Sunday and our cottage guests were very understanding with the log burner in full swing and a camping stove for boiling water.
Forecast is 15 degrees tomorrow - what a difference from this mornings icy conditions.

04/04/2026

Roll on 4am when this blizzard is due to end - BBC cloud scan forecast was spot on as you wouldn’t have predicted this at 4 pm today. Fingers crossed none of these girls decide to have early lambs tonight!!

04/04/2026

Snowy scene but beautiful morning at Ivy Cottage . With the main lambing not due to start till mid week the only lamb this morning was from our pet Texel Eillidh who lambed inside with a bit of assistance. We bought our first heat lamp yesterday and tried it out and the wee lamb in the corner loved it I think😴
Trying to do a speedy changeover today at the cottage to get our next guests in before the weather turns mid afternoon.

29/03/2026

The only way to do lambing in weather like this - sitting watching them on camera as the hail batters of the roof . 4 lambs now from the early escape of the Texel when he jumped the fence late October but all fine. Rosie the pet on her 5th lambing had a cracking tup lamb at 2.30 am - tough one as head only coming no legs but got it out and both fine. It was tempting to stay in bed and give her a couple of hours more but glad I assisted before head started to swell. She has only one working teat so poor wee soul keeps sucking the wrong side but I’m sure he’ll learn quickly . We don’t normally keep sheep with udder problems but our cottage guests would raise a petition if Rosie were to go 🐏🐏🐏😂

26/03/2026

Came home to our first lamb tonight - Texel gimmer lambed on her own outside and lamb had got full belly of milk. The ram jumped the fence to get in with ewes in November when I was away for weekend and I noted in my diary first lamb could be as early as 26 th March so bang on. Ears a bit floppy so probably a few days premature.
Eventful start to the day when I found a gimmer expecting triplets in a months time flaked out unable to stand because of the cold night. Got her inside and gave her a shot of Cetaphyton and she was up and about by lunchtime - magic stuff!! Topped her up with calcium tonight so hopefully she will be fine even though she now walks about like Blindy with her head in the air😂😂.

20/03/2026

Maybe our blindy will do the same next year🤞. She’s back on the Croft now and gets very vocal when she hears the feed bucket rattle before finding the feed trough , bouncing of a few fence posts along the way!!!

She is completely blind, showing us how it’s done. Fantastic mum! 👏 👏

📸 Sara Wilson

27/02/2026

Sunshine and snowdrops - what a lovely day of weather we had at Ivy Cottage and the tup lambs were delighted to stretch their legs outside.