AFTER a long, cold winter these little rays of sunshine have been lighting up one Suffolk farm

As expected, the first lambs of spring at Baylham House arrived early on Friday morning and several more were born over the weekend.

The first, a Norfolk Horn ram lamb, was followed soon after by a pair of Llanwenog twins and by yesterday the farm, which specialises in rare breeds, had 12 little lambs taking their first steps with more expected over the coming days.

Visitors will have the chance to see the new arrivals during half term when the farm opens for the season on February 18.

“Lambing to coincide with the half term does not happen by accident,” said Neil Storer, who looks after all the livestock at the rare breeds farm.

“We have to start the planning and the calculations way back in August. First of all we put a vasectomised teaser in with the girls to get all their hormones working properly and then we put the breeding rams in with each group of females.

“Later on we have them all scanned so we know how many lambs each ewe is expecting and, having noted the dates when each ewe was covered by the ram, we know when the lambs are due.”

During this busy period, the Baylham House lambing shed is checked every three hours, day and night, so that each imminent lambing is identified and someone can be standing by should help be needed with the actual birth.

Visitors, except expectant mothers, will be able to walk through the lambing shed to see exactly what is involved in producing pure bred lambs from the farm’s six different flocks of sheep.

The second batch of lambing has been arranged to happen during the Easter holidays starting on Saturday April 9.