Rolling hills, sea air.....and the cutest lambs I have ever seen!

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During the Spring last year I went to stay on a really lovely and quaint small-holding in the countryside of Bude called Cerenety as part of WildVenture's Orphan Lamb Care project. It feels a little strange writing about this now as I'm actually in Sri Lanka doing work on turtles at this moment in time, but for the sake of continuity I'm going to write about my travels in the order that I did them.

My Arrival

I arrived on my first day and sat down at the picnic bench in the middle of a grassy field surrounded by goats, alpacas and a small dog with 6 other fresh faced volunteers whilst we got given our health and safety briefing. We got a tour of the small-holding and got to meet all the residents - Red the horse, Tory the pony, Heather the alpaca, Sid the sheep (plus 8 other sheep which I forget the names of), 12 absolutely adorable orphaned lambs and of course, Jake, the owner of the site. We spent the rest of the first day in the (surprisingly mild) British sun having a barbecue and getting to know the rest of our team and the expedition leaders. Celli and Jake were our expedition leaders and they were such good fun and really down-to-earth, they really taught us a lot over the project and made it fun at the same time - and put up with my inability to keep the lambs under control!

It's all about the lambs

During the project we got split into small groups and assigned our jobs for the coming week. I got put with two girls called Dani and Jasmine - they're a bundle of laughs and up for anything, always getting stuck in where help's needed, I'm still in touch with them and I'm looking forward to a good night out with them when I'm back in the UK. We got given 6 of the lambs to look after whilst we were there and we got to bottle feed them, we even got to name them (three we named after ourselves of course!) The program is trying to find out which methods are best for raising orphan lambs to be as fit and as healthy as possible - so each was being fed in a slightly different way and we were taking their weights and body measurements to monitor their developments. It's the first year the research has been run but it will be really interesting to see the results - this could really help to give better guidance on how to look after these lambs properly to improve their lives and also help farmers improve their businesses.

Fun Fun Fun

We spent many an evening in the merriest of spirits drinking cheep beer and wine round the camp fire. One of the guys brought a ukulele with him and although he wasn't very good, we still enjoyed singing along with whatever tunes he came up with. He was excellent at making up the lyrics as he went along, all of which were hilariously funny and had us all in stitches!

A really great day was on one of our activity day. We all decided that we would really like to go surfing and take advantage of the nearby beaches with the brilliant Atlantic waves - perfect for surfing! I hadn't ever been surfing before, not properly anyway, my usual practices of surfing involve riding a wave with my body for about 3 meters before being dragged under the water and almost drowning! This time was brilliant!! We had a very handsome instructor teach us exactly how to hold the board and get on it when we're in the water. I still wasn't very good though, but by the end of the day I managed to stay on the board for almost 5 seconds which I was mightily impressed with myself for

I really hope I get to go back again this coming Spring and help out again. Bude itself was a lovely town which I would like to explore more of - plus I want to see how my lambs are getting on and what they look like now they're all grown up....

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Photos

2 of the lambs
Jasmine and Blossom, is one nibbling the others ear??

Blossom
Close-up of the cutie!

Lyn and Willow
We were able to witness the birth of baby Lyn and we had to show Willow (her mum) how to feed her as she seemed a little unsure at first. Willow was an orphan lamb herself so never got the chance to learn how to be a proper mother.

Lovely lamb
Heather, one of the other volunteers, with her favourite lamb

Batty
Batty getting his food - poor thing was lame, blind, had bad legs and an eye infection. He seemed to be improving when I left so hopefully he pulled through and is now fighting fit.

Beekeeping
Being shown the bee hive and how they extract the honey

Our smallest lamb
Little Lucy was our smallest and possibly our cutest lamb. She was very ill by the time I left - fingers crossed she pulled through.

Jake feeding Blossom
The owner of Cerenety showing us how to properly bottle feed a lamb