Across some of the most beautiful and remote landscapes
of the British Isles...
There's not many views like that.
It's absolutely stunning.
..Scotland's farmers work day and night...
..producing our milk and our meat...
..trying out new ideas...
If a buffalo doesn't want to do something,
you're going to find it very difficult.
..and striving to turn a profit in tough economic times.
We're struggling. We are definitely struggling. Rosette...
Over the course of a year,
six very different families let cameras onto their farms...
Everything that could have gone wrong there, went wrong.
The idea of lying on a beach - bliss.
..to share their struggles...
We have to get her out, or she's going to die.
..and their triumphs.
Thank you! It's not about the pay cheque.
It's about the lifestyle.
Spring has arrived in Scotland.
From the rich, low pastures, to the rugged Highlands,
fresh, nourishing grass is sprouting.
Nature is blooming.
For the farmers, everything they've invested into their livestock
over the last few months is about to bear fruit.
It's the season for new life,
and a time when mothers play an essential role
in everyone's survival.
It's a wonderful time of the year, spring.
It really is all about the girls.
I love it because there's so many babies around and the lambs
and the calves.
The mums, they've got to do their job too
and look after and raise their babies.
And at the end of the day, we kind of have to sit back and hope
that they've got that maternal instinct,
and let nature take its course.
In the north-east of Scotland, near Aberdeen,
Mel and Martin Irvine and their family are tenants
of a 240-acre farm where they rear 70 pedigree Limousin cattle
and 260 sheep.
Alongside their own flock,
they also manage 600 sheep for the Drummuir estate,
a job they took on three years ago to boost their income.
They are now nine days into lambing,
and Martin's on duty.
If the weather's good like it is now,
it's going to be just perfect for us.
What you really want is to get the ewe lambed and outside
as quickly as possible.
It's been a good lambing. Quite enjoying it, really.
Two years ago,
Mel and Martin lambed alone, 24 hours a day.
MEL: I can't stress enough how tired you get.
And to top it all, they were hit
by an unseasonable blast of icy weather.
This last four or five days,
it's been about minus two, three, four at night.
It's frosty. It's cold.
It's wet. It just kind of gets into you.
You don't get a full night's sleep, ever. No.
This year, with baby Erin in the mix,
they've employed an extra pair of hands to help at night,
which means no more camping out in the caravan.
VOICEOVER: I come in in the morning about seven o'clock
and I'll check everything, speak to the night lamber.
Usually takes about two hours.
Mel, she comes in through the day and gives a hand.
So plenty of manpower which makes the job much easier.
Each ewe has been scanned to see how many lambs she's carrying,
which dictates her position in the maternity ward.
The ewes go from in here waiting to lamb.
They lamb in there, spend a half day in these pens here.
They're shifted into the next pen, a day in there.
They go up to the outside corral, a day in there.
If they're strong enough, out to the park, weather permitting.
So it's just a massive conveyor belt and you just keep it going,
keep it going, keep it going.
Martin needs to be on alert for any ewes having difficulty.
So we've got one started here.
So we've got a gimmer, this is a first-time lamber.
All I can see is one foot,
or maybe, I think it could be a leg, but it could be a problem,
it's not presented properly.
If one leg is back, this gimmer or first-time mum,
won't be able to give birth without help.
Martin must intervene to save her, and her twins.
As I thought, we've got one leg and the one leg back.
It is not presented properly, so it's not going to be the easiest way
of coming out. Because she's a gimmer,
she's going to be a little bit tight.
And I've not got the smallest hands.
Sorry, girl. This is where you need Mel.
Mel's got nice small hands for doing this job.
My hands are just a bit big.
I found another foot, so we've got two feet now.
There we go. It'll pop out nice and easy.
So a nice wee shake of the head, that's what you want.
The head's hold up. He's quite happy.
I'll give him to his mum.
But her ordeal's not over yet.
She scanned for twins so there is another a lamb in there
and if it was sitting there ready, I'd take it out.
But it's still sitting away deep inside,
so I'll leave her for another five, ten minutes.
I'll leave her there. I hear some grunting and groaning, triplets,
so I'll go and check that shed. Kind of just go around in circles
all the time.
Ten minutes later, Martin checks on the gimmer again.
Worryingly, she's showing no signs of mothering her tiny lamb.
VOICEOVER: First-time lamber, the mother instinct's never as strong.
So what we'll do is we'll put her in a pen, little lamb.
There's more chance the mother will bond with her baby
in a smaller environment. She's a bit underweight.
She's obviously not been eating properly.
And she's just not looking right in the eye.
What you want to see is her licking the lamb,
but she's just not interested.
While most experienced ewes are quick to attach to their new lambs,
some first-time mums can be slow to acknowledge
they've had a lamb at all.
A good mum, she's licking them, she's cleaning them.
You can hear that mummy noise.
EWE GRUNTS
It's a good sign.
Where you've got the gimmer, the first-time lamber over there,
who, looking at her, doesn't even know she's had a lamb yet.
So hopefully by the time I get the second lamb out of her,
she'll kind of suss. We've put her in a pen,
so she's in a confined space.
Hopefully, she'll start licking her lamb,
but she will love that child, eventually.
On the other side of the country lies the Isle of Mull
in the Inner Hebrides.
It's home to new entrant farmers Janet and Alastair Taylor.
I'll shut the gate door.
They set up their farm from scratch five years ago,
and now keep 140 breeding ewes and 27 Highland cattle over 700 acres
of rough ground.
Lambing is imminent and, today, the plan is to bring their pregnant ewes
into the shed for a final health check.
Today, we are treating all the sheep before lambing.
We like to do it quite soon so we're not running them around too close
to giving birth.
Come up.
We're being very gentle on them because they're heavily pregnant.
That's why it's just one dog, not harassing them,
making them do tight turns and things.
It's much easier to just coax them in.
The ewes will lamb out on the hill,
so this is the last time Janet and Alastair
will get to see them up close.
They're looking good, actually.
It's been not too bad a winter.
We'll see when we get a hand on them.
You can't tell under the wool how they're doing.
But they're looking heavy. It's going to be a busy lambing, I think!
Better catch up.
That went quite well! There was a few trying to be naughty,
but they knew where they were going.
I'm excited about lambing time at the moment.
Just get nervous about having lots of problems and the weather
not playing ball, because it's outside.
Each ewe gets medicine that kills worms...
One at a time, girls.
..and liver fluke, a potentially deadly parasite.
It's very important to do this before they lamb,
just to make sure they're clean of worms and fluke.
And they'll get a dose again after lambing as well.
This year, their hopes are pinned on new, untried tup, Owen.
Last autumn, Owen was put out with the ewes for the first time.
It's all just a gamble.
We won't know until we get some lambs in the spring
whether he's done the job well
and whether he produces as nice lambs as he is.
So next year, it'll be exciting, lambing time.
The green on this one's bum, that's from Owen,
from when he served her.
So on their bum they'll have different colours depending
on which tup they went to. But all these ones are Owen's ones.
He's served a lot of sheep, but, yeah, we just need to wait and see.
A lot rides on how well Owen's done his job,
but, at the moment, there's no way of knowing,
as Janet and Alastair's ewes have not been scanned.
If all of the green bums didn't have lambs,
that would be a disaster, and definitely Owen doesn't work.
I would expect one or two not to have lambs,
but that wouldn't be any fault of Owen's. That's just life.
If we had one lamb to every ewe, we'd be ecstatic.
If we had more than that, unbelievable.
I mean, that's just the way our system is, it's different -
everyone else's is aiming for 150, 200%.
But if we can get 100%, we're really happy.
100% means one lamb for every ewe.
Female lambs will be added to Janet and Alastair's breeding stock
and the males will be sold into the food chain in the autumn,
providing half of the farm's income for next year.
So it's all a guessing game.
We'll see when they lamb.
If it was free, I would have them scanned.
Yes, if it was free, you'd have them scanned.
She's in lamb. I would say so, looking at her belly.
Yeah. Definitely in lamb.
Probably in lamb.
Definitely, probably, maybe in lamb.
Yeah, that's exactly it.
Definitely, probably, maybe.
Fingers are firmly crossed for a good crop.
Come on, girls.
But for now, it's just a waiting game.
Near Aberdeen...
..Mel has arrived at the estate lambing shed.
I know, girl, it's stuck, stuck, stuck.
She's been around sheep all her life,
so knows every trick of the trade.
Stop, stop.
It's thanks to her they have the large contract
to manage 600 of their landlord's sheep. This is big.
This is too big. That's what the boss does.
Last year, she had to stay away.
Some infections can be passed from pregnant sheep to pregnant women
that could harm the baby.
Last year, I hated it, but it was necessary for me not to be here.
Being pregnant with Erin, so...
I got really bad cabin fever at home,
as I wasn't allowed near pregnant sheep.
But it's really good to be back.
Who spat that out? That'll be what
your grunting was! That's how quick it can be.
We were over there lambing a ewe.
Turn our back and the other thing's spat out!
A gimmer again, but...
She loves her baby. She loves her baby.
Oh, there it goes.
And out pops the twin.
She made that look like a piece of cake!
My childbirth was not that easy!
That's what we just want - nice, easy, easy birth.
Over on the intensive care ward,
the first-time mum is still not bonding with her lamb.
Martin's hoping Mel will know what to do.
She's nae milk.
Nothing at all?
The gimmer's now ready to have her twin.
Come out quite easy, I think.
Mel has a trick up her sleeve to encourage the mum to bond
with her babies.
I just took a little bit of the amniotic fluid and rubbed it
in her mouth. Sometimes that stimulates them to lick their lambs.
Come on, Mummy. Martin said that...
..she'd never really took much interest in the first lamb,
but I think she might come round now.
Some first mums are really good and some are not so good.
Sometimes it just takes a minute for their mothering instinct to come in
and sometimes it doesn't come at all.
So we just have to wait and see what she does.
Just walk away and leave her.
Further north in the Highlands...
..Robin and Penny Calvert have been running their croft,
a traditional Scottish smallholding, for 25 years.
Their 23 Highland cattle are in the middle
of their spring calving season.
We've got two calves here a couple of weeks old.
They're ready for tagging now. They've been registered,
and we need to shed the calves off from the cows.
Quite which direction they'll go in, I don't know.
The calves have to be tagged by law,
so it a necessary ordeal for calf and mother.
The one at the back, here, Mary Anne, she's very,
very possessive of her calves,
so we just have to play it completely by ear
and just see what happens.
It's that low moaning of the mother to say,
"You get one inch closer to my baby, and I'll have you."
It's all noise!
It's all noise.
Bonding between cow and calf is formed by a combination of hormones
and learned behaviour...
..and it's the strength of this bond
that makes some mothers like Mary Anne overprotective.
You've got the maternal instinct.
When they're just two or three days old,
you just cannot get near the calf for the mother.
You just can't take any risks with them.
Mary Anne's a bit of her own person. She's a very, very possessive cow.
You feel quite threatened by her.
She's not threatening. Well, she's mumbling away!
It's just it's the same as women do it. "Goo-goo-goo-goo-goo."
PENNY LAUGHS In my mind, it's ridiculous. That's not ridiculous!
That means business!
The plan is to separate the calves from their mothers.
Now, girls, I'm going to try and get the cows and the calves up
into this end of the crush, and then we'll see how we can separate her.
I'm not quite sure just what's going to happen yet.
Get that back gate shut.
Right, don't let the cows in with her.
Come on, girls. On you go.
On you go.
No. Take your calfie with you.
Come on, calfie-calf.
Actually... Brilliant.
By chance, Mary Anne's bull calf has ended up in the fank.
COW MOOS Ho! Get up!
Get up! Get up! Ho!
Ho! Ho! Ho!
It's not working.
Go! Ho! Ho! Come on!
Come on!
I know, we've got your calfie.
Come on!
COW MOOS
Penny, come in and get to the back of that gate.
Stay at the back of that gate.
Push that gate around now.
Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!
Come on!
Well done. Go on.
Back, back, back, back! Back, back, back, back, back!
She wants to come here, look. Right.
We'll do them one on one. I've got one there.
We'll do that one first.
Come on, calfie.
Put your head through there.
That's it, we've got him. Right.
Up against the side of the thing, so it doesn't struggle.
I don't want to hurt it.
OK.
Very woolly ears.
That's it. That's one.
Horrible thing to get in the right place.
No, missed it. Make sure you don't get too much fur in it.
That's the problem with these tags.
Dear, oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.
Take your time. The problem is, if this tag doesn't go right,
we've only got a half-tagged cow, then.
CALF MOOS
Go on. That's it. Look, you've got new badges.
Isn't that pretty?
Aren't you pretty?
Those two are reunited again. That's fine,
sort of. There's no telling what's going to happen.
I knew we were going to have problems getting them separated.
Now it's calf number two's turn - a heifer.
As soon as he gets to the corner.
Hold him, Pen.
TAGGER CLICKS That's one.
One.
That's two.
That's it. You sure? Yeah.
Get you back to your mum. Here you are.
COW MOOS
There you go. Everybody happy.
That wasn't easy.
Nearly 150 miles south-west, on the Isle of Mull...
..lambing has finally kicked off...
..and Janet and Alastair are on early-morning patrol
to see who's arrived.
A ewe with new lambs.
That's the first set of twins.
Good job, girl. It's just nice, you know - first-time lamber,
she's done it all herself.
She's got two of them, and she knows she's got two of them,
and she adores them. Good mothering instinct.
We'll leave her in peace.
Many ewes lambing outdoors give birth first thing in the morning.
It gives the mothers and lambs time to bond and adjust before nightfall,
when the risk of predators is high.
The first one born.
Yeah, that's number one that's climbing on...
SHE LAUGHS ..on its mum. "Mum! What are you doing?
"Give me some attention!"
It'll be a week old, getting quite cheeky now.
By regularly patrolling the fields,
Janet and Alastair hope to keep on top of any problems during lambing.
I do enjoy it. It's an emotional roller coaster, though,
with lots of ups and downs, and it's quite stressful.
You're worrying about things when you're not here, so it will be...
..be good when there's lots more lambs.
I can start to relax a little bit more.
Is there room in here for me?
They plan to stand clear and let nature take its course.
But, if necessary, they will help any mothers in trouble.
Most of them, you just come out and there's a lamb with them
and it's fine, then you see one that's starting lambing
and you can't help but stay and watch it,
just in case there's a problem.
Seeing them in the middle of it then,
I've got all the thoughts... "Oh, is there going to be a problem?"
I'm just a pessimist, I guess.
I think the lamb's just coming headfirst.
I'll have to intervene with this one, yeah.
Alastair's spotted the lamb's tongue,
which means it's coming out head, instead of feet, first.
Catch, catch, catch, catch, catch! That's her.
Hey, lamb, are you still with us?
I've got one leg.
It's come with its head first. No legs coming.
So it's got stuck, and its head's swollen.
Shall I see if I can get hold of something
to pop the other shoulder through?
Come on, girl, push.
That's it. That's it.
That's a girl!
It's a boy.
That's good, a wee sneeze.
Yeah, he's a good boy.
Obviously, as you can see from its head, it's very swollen.
It's been put under a lot of pressure at its neck,
and it's stone-cold, its head.
He's been stuck like that for a wee while, so, yeah,
I would say a couple of hours, maybe.
The lamb is still weak, so Janet and Alastair take the pair to the shed,
where they can monitor them closely.
We need to get them in the "lambulance",
but we're not sure it can get down here. It's quite boggy.
SHE WHISTLES Come on.
Here, dogs.
Yeah, a lambulance.
It's fun driving them, though.
There we go.
Even with all the trauma and upheaval,
this older mum is already bonding with her baby.
Good girl.
Out you come.
You'll get your baby in a second.
Back at the shed,
she clearly doesn't want to be separated from him.
Where'd your mummy go?
Slimeball.
So because they're going to be in the shed,
we give them a wee umbilical spray just to help prevent infections.
And you can come back in here with Mummy.
Hello, Mummy.
She's an older ewe, so she knows the score,
and she's quite content with him.
The ewe is doing her job perfectly.
The worry is whether it's all been too stressful for the lamb.
It's not looking very lively at the moment.
It's lying flat-out, shivering away.
I'd like him to sit up a little bit more.
Across Scottish farms,
the quality of the land and pasture affects the birth rate of sheep.
Where conditions are tough and food scarce,
most ewes will have one single lamb.
But in the lowland pastures, better nutrition increases fertility...
..and twins and triplets are more common.
Near Aberdeen, at the Drummuir estate,
Mel and Martin are expecting 372 sets of twins and 142 triplets.
Their survival rate will depend on the mothering skills of the ewes.
Mel checks on the gimmer who's not bonding with her twins.
These little lambs are hungry.
She's just going to crouch down.
This is another way. You want to get the colostrum into them
as soon as they're up and going, and they usually do that themselves.
The first milk's so important.
It's packed full of antibodies.
I'm hoping the more these lambs go to the teat,
it will stimulate her to produce more milk.
But there's not a lot there to start with,
so we'll be definitely keeping an eye on these ones.
The gimmer's still showing no interest.
If she doesn't develop a maternal instinct,
her twins' lives are in danger.
On the other side of the country, on the west coast, in Appin,
David and Sandra Colthart farm over 3,200 acres of rough, hilly terrain.
Their 550 sheep have already started lambing, but today,
David's preoccupied with their pregnant cows.
Everybody looks fairly content.
No, I don't think there's anything
that's imminent like today and tonight, do you?
Well... I don't... She's... They all look pretty...
She's pretty close. The brownie's quite close.
David's cows spend winter and spring in the shed,
where they're warm and dry and he can monitor them closely.
Calving's really kind of started to ramp up in the last few days.
This other cow, she just started, kind of...
..calving just in the last ten, 15 minutes.
Come on, girl.
With so many about to give birth, it's tricky to know when to step in.
These are like his babies, so...
I like them too but sometimes he gets just a bit kind of...
"Quick, get in there, do something before it's too late."
And it's like the cow's looking at him like, "I'm not ready yet."
COW MOANS
The calf's halfway out. She's still pushing.
I'm actually going to stand back a wee bit so that I'm not
the distraction.
Maybe if she gets up to move, then the weight of the calf
will pull it out.
She's getting up now.
Don't want to intervene unless we really have to.
MOANING CONTINUES
I need to go in and get that.
Oh, come on. Get in, you.
In you go. In, in.
In you go.
Let's get this round the...
Oh.
Oh, yeah...
Right, come on.
In this case, the calf is small, so the mother might have managed alone,
but a swift birth is better all round.
That's one of the joyous sights of farming - a new life.
Mum looking at its calf.
The maternal bond just immediately being created.
One of the better moments.
Across the shed, another cow has started labour.
One of the cows has went to the back of the pen and started pushing,
so I'll get a pen for her. Come on, lass.
David's hoping it will be an easy birth, like her last one.
She's had three calves already,
so it could probably have it quite quick
but I'll just leave her in peace for the moment,
for the next kind of 15, 20 minutes and see what happens.
But minutes later,
it becomes clear that this calf might be much bigger than the last.
We have to calve her.
Did you call Alastair?
Yep.
David's brother Alastair runs the farm next door.
We'll have a look.
She's quite a big cow.
Might need a wee helping hand.
Now David has a team of helpers, including his nephew Robert.
We've got Sandra, the boss. SANDRA LAUGHS
We're just going to go into the yoke and feel to see
that everything's coming all right.
But she hasn't really made any movements in the last wee while.
She should've been further forward than she is.
The plan is to try and ease the calf out using a rope.
Just trying to get the rope around past the knuckle.
Come on, girl.
But the strength of three men is not enough.
They decide to use the calving jack.
Is the ratchet on? What it does is it helps keep the pressure on
when we're calving, and gives it a wee pull.
Come on.
Right.
Come on, girl. Gently.
One more push.
One more.
Oh! Well.
Oh, big calf. Holy smokes.
Whoa. It's a heifer.
Is it? She's lovely.
It maybe looks harsh but it's actually not.
And it just keeps everything at your pace.
Yeah, whereas if you're pulling by hand with ropes,
as we used to do years ago before the jacks came along,
you can't keep the same pressure so you relax a wee bit,
that calf can go back into the position you started
so you're more pulling. It's more stressful on the calf.
So once you bring it up the birth canal, you don't want it to go back.
The result is a happy, healthy and very large calf.
It's just a wonderment that half an hour ago, that was inside the cow
and with a wee bit of help from myself and Alastair,
the calf's out and it's wanting to get up
and suck and she's got that wee survival instinct
and that's what you want. It's lovely to see.
Back at the house, there's another expectant mother...
Come on. Let's have a little feel.
..Sandra's three-year-old collie, Flash.
You've got a little bit of a bulgy tummy going on, hm?
This will be her first litter of puppies as well.
I think she'll make a good mother. She's nice and gentle.
As a sideline, Sandra successfully breeds and trains
pedigree border collies,
which means the farm's puppies are in high demand.
The pups are all spoken for. It makes it easier,
then I'm not tempted to keep any
when I know there's a waiting list for them.
We keep far too many of our dogs,
so I think we've got 14 at the moment.
Too many! I must resist.
Further north in the Highlands...
Hello. Where's the rest of you?
..Robin patrols his 110-acre croft
to keep a watchful eye on the mothers.
Unlike David and Sandra's cows,
his pregnant cattle give birth anywhere
and one of his cows needs help.
Here we are. We found her.
It's four-year-old Ginger.
She was down, there's no head showing yet
and I've got her on the ropes
to keep her in one place because I suspect she's got it rather stuck.
So what I'm going to do is put a rope on the hooves
and give a gentle pull
and just see if that encourages a strain or not
and then we'll see what happens from there.
There are no yokes or calving jacks out here in woods.
All Robin has is a rope and his own strength.
I'm going to try and get a rope on to these hooves and see if we can
just give it a gentle pull and see what happens.
All right, Ginger. All right, girl.
There's a hoof.
If I can't get at you, I can't help you, can I?
Come on, this way. Would help if you just, you know,
give us a little bit of help as well.
Come on. Come on, girl.
Come on. In you come.
There's the other hoof.
All right, Ginger.
A bit of gentle strain onto that.
Robin must keep the tension up to stop the calf slipping back inside.
Come on, Ginger. You can do it. You're doing it. We're nearly there.
There you go. Good girl.
Come on.
It's coming the right way round. Come on, Ginger, strain.
This is the danger point.
Come on, Ginger, you can do it.
Come on, Ginger. Strain a bit, girl.
Get the bloody head and shoulders out.
Pulling is not working. Robin needs help...
..but the only help on hand is the film crew.
Put that camera down. Give me a pull.
Seriously. We're going to lose this calf if we're not careful.
It's got to come quick and fast now
or it's going to strangle itself.
It's a two-man job, is this.
You can hold that rope. Yeah. Right, now.
That's it.
Well done. Thanks, Steve. That wasn't fun, was it?
The calf's out but it hasn't taken a breath.
Go on, get some breathing going.
Come on, get some breathing going. Oh, God.
Come on, little fella.
Come on, you can do it. Are you there?
Come on, you can live.
Come on, little fella. Come on, big cough.
Big cough.
It's breathing.
He's alive. Are you all right?
That was tough, wasn't it?
You've just got a bloody big head and you've got a small mum.
Yes, I know, I'm not your mum.
You need your mum, don't you? Come here, you slippery little bugger,
let's have you.
Here you are, Ginger.
That's all yours.
That's it. Go on.
Go on, Ginger, give it a lick.
That's more like it.
She's bonding with it.
That was never going to come on its own.
I just needed more strength than I possess
to actually pull that calf out.
It was very, very stuck.
If we hadn't been here to help her,
we'd probably have had at least a dead calf and possibly
a dead cow by the morning.
But that's what it's about when you're calving, you know.
You're there all time.
It's been an ordeal for the calf and mum, too.
Hello, girl. You did awfully well.
You did well. Yes, you did well.
All this fuss that women go to in hospitals and things.
You could have a lovely place like this instead of some stuffy hospital
full of chemicals.
You've certainly gone a bit slimmer, Ginger.
A nice little roebuck I didn't know we had.
And another. There's two roebucks.
It's a miracle. It's fabulous.
Yeah, I never fail getting a buzz out of it because, reality-wise,
we are commercial here, but we don't see the...
..the cattle just as a number and a commodity. You know,
they are very much part of what we do. They're part of our everyday.
Come on, laddie. You can do it. Come on, you're nearly up.
He's up on his feet.
Yay! We have a nice bull calf and it's standing.
Not very steady on his pins yet.
She's bursting milk. Go on, you can get hold. That's it.
He's on. You think of it, that's pretty awe-inspiring, isn't it?
I mean, the little thing's only been born after a pretty rough ride
and he's got the wit to get up
and start ratching around looking
for where his dinner is coming from. Scruffy little bugger.
Well done, Ginger. Good girl.
Right. Success.
Birth is the most hazardous time in any young animal's life...
..and lambs born outside are amongst the most vulnerable.
In the UK, almost half of all lamb deaths happen in the first two days
of life.
A ewe's mothering instinct is critical,
but at times, not enough.
Near Aberdeen...
..Mel's on her morning rounds in the lambing shed.
You guys look like you're probably getting fed.
Ten days into lambing, so far over 350 lambs have been born.
But all is not well.
We have a tragedy in this pen unfortunately.
It's the gimmer's pen.
Both her lambs have died.
They would've been 24 hours old
and, this morning, I found that her last lamb has died as well.
Its tummy has got milk.
It's got a full tummy. Its mouth is maybe a little watery,
which could be a disease called watery mouth.
Watery mouth disease is a dangerous infection in a lamb's stomach.
It causes excessive salivation...
..and is usually fatal,
particularly if the mother fails to give her lambs
the antibody-rich first milk colostrum.
She has just been a useless mother.
She didn't want to lick them at all and if they don't get that colostrum
within however many hours of... You know,
you really want them up sucking as soon as they can.
So this woman will be kicked out of here.
I'll mark her with an X or stripe along her side and she'll go out
to the field.
No prisoners here. She's not getting any more lambs.
It sounds harsh but farming is a business.
Every animal has to pay her way and if this gimmer
has no mothering instinct, then she's not doing her job.
She'll go out in the field.
She's a gimmer, so maybe give her a second chance...
..maybe.
But suddenly...
..the gimmer does something she hasn't done before.
She kind of looks actually a little interested in it.
Do you want another lamb?
Maybe the lambs weren't right anyway. I'm not sure.
So had maybe a little change of heart and I might try a pet lamb
and see what she does.
Mel keeps the orphaned and abandoned lambs in a pet pen.
Right, who wants a new mummy?
LAMB BLEATS
Right, let's see what she does.
This is the thing, cos this lamb has got different smells on it
and sounds.
Mel's plan is very much a long shot.
Ewes form an exclusive bond with their lambs through sight,
smell and sound,
so a mother will almost always reject a lamb that she doesn't know
as her own by butting it away.
"Doesn't smell like mine," she says.
EWE GRUMBLES Oh. Oh, the mummy noises are always quite nice.
It looks quite good so far.
You know, this is all-new for her,
she has never done it before so sometimes you can't blame them
but sometimes I just think,
"Oh, mother instinct, just kick in, please."
She might make a good mother yet.
I'll just keep an eye on it.
In the far west, on the Isle of Mull...
..Janet and Alastair are keeping an eye
on the lamb they rescued while on patrol.
Hey, my girl. You're up and having something to eat.
It sounds and it looks like it's feeding.
She looks like she's done a good job of cleaning it off.
Yeah, absolutely fine.
This one has been a complete success.
It's great news - another healthy lamb, which is just as well.
Alastair's just found out that the farm
is soon to lose valuable subsidies,
so every lamb and the more lucrative calves must make up for this loss
of income.
I've discovered that over the next few years, we'll be sort of £3,000
to £4,000 worse off on the subsidies we receive,
so every calf's worth a fortune to us now
because they have got to make up that extra gap.
Recent changes to the EU's Common Agricultural Policy
means smaller farms could struggle to qualify for grants.
There's a lot riding on everything on the farm.
The farm really needs to produce a bit more to try and make up
for the loss of subsidies.
That's the way it is and it always will be.
Things are always tight.
They will be wee bit tighter for a few years but hopefully...
We've got more cows calving than we've had before
and we've got more heifers coming through,
so we should get up to our sort of 10 to 12 cows, which is kind of
where we're thinking will be enough cows for the place.
Hopefully, all Owen's lambs will sell for lots of money.
Much has been riding on young Owen's success rate.
The hope is that he'll produce predominantly female lambs.
They'll join the breeding stock,
increasing the number of sale lambs in the future.
So, on patrol, Janet and Alastair
are keeping a tally of his offspring.
Aww, it's super cute.
You take a picture with my camera.
Oh! It does have her ears.
It does look just like him.
Big stretch.
There we go.
You see all the brown going through her legs.
Yeah, but her mother's like that.
Yeah. And her mother's mother.
The whole line's like that.
Three generations.
It's a perfect female lamb.
And even better, Owen is the dad.
The plan is that he'll keep producing females
for us to increase the numbers and replace old girls.
And, so far, he's fathered six lambs.
I think they all so far have been females, except for one male.
One. He's doing quite well at the moment.
It'll take a wee while to see how it goes on and how they come on
but things are looking good so far.
Across the country, there are new lambs in every corner.
They're learning the ropes by closely following their mothers
for the first two weeks of life.
Running and skipping releases happy chemicals -
or endorphins - in the brain...
..tests their motor skills...
..and teaches them social rules in a safe environment.
Oh, my God, the twins are just so cute.
They're so tiny.
The twins need some extra milk as their mother is getting on in years.
Such little wrigglers.
Shetland wrigglers.
I'm topping them up because she hasn't got much milk, so...
It's definitely her age. She's not got much milk on her.
Don't gargle on it.
When we first came out to check them,
she's got them both laid down and she'd laid down and she gave us
the dirtiest look, like, "I've just settled them down."
And we got them up and they were like, "Wah!"
by the time we left them.
She's a very good mum. She's a good mum.
It's been a good lambing so far,
which bodes well for future progeny on the farm.
Across the Sound of Mull, on the mainland in Appin,
Sandra and David are taking a well-earned break from the farm
to collect their number one baby.
Well, well, this is a big day for us.
The parrot that we have abandoned down at my parents
is about to be recovered.
Einey is short for Einstein. He's our African Grey parrot.
Yep. He's our child. It's kind of crazy, but...
He's like our child.
Sandra grew up in Canada when her parents emigrated.
But they returned to the family croft over 20 years ago.
I guess we'd better go and see what's going on with Mum and Dad.
Do you want your mask?
SHE COUGHS AND LAUGHS It's your idea.
I'm trying to stop. I can't stop.
Both David and Sandra have colds, so they're wearing masks
to protect her 84-year-old mother.
OK.
We've finally come to collect him.
Hi, Einey.
Time to come home. Are you ready to come home?
He's not saying much, is he?
So you're going to grab that end and I'll grab this end.
Yep. Right. OK.
Are you scared of us because we're wearing masks?
I thought living in the country was supposed to be healthy.
Well, it is. You sure as hell don't look too healthy.
Bye, Einey. Say goodbye to your granny.
Uh-oh. It's OK, Einey. Calm down.
Calm down. Yeah, I love my little Einey.
He's really like my child and sometimes at night,
if something scares him
outside the window, I have to come running downstairs and console him
cos you can actually hear his heart thumping outside of his chest.
Einey has been at Sandra's parents for six weeks.
There he is.
Hello. Welcome home.
Kiss kiss. Of all the animals, that's number one.
Einey is the most important animal.
Are you happy to be home?
Tickle tickle. SHE SMACKS HER LIPS
Kiss kiss. HE SMACKS HIS LIPS
Hello! He's in a bit of a huff, I think, cos we left them.
You going to say anything? Aw, Einey.
Einey is normally very talkative but it seems the upheaval
has stunned him into silence.
However, he does have another party piece up his sleeve.
Einey, come, then. Come on, come on.
Come on. Come on. Dance, dance!
There he goes. Woo! Dance!
Come on! Come on!
In the far north-east...
..Robin's keen to check on Ginger and her calf.
Heading back out. Haven't seen her for two or three hours
and just want to keep an eye on her.
HE WHISTLES
Hold tight.
Can you see the calfie?
It's there, look.
Hello, little fella.
Looking fine to me. Looking like a one-day-old calf.
It's just nice to see the animals in a habitat like this, you know,
where they're short of absolutely nothing.
Every new life is of huge value.
Ginger's calf could go on to make around £500
when he's eventually sold.
But like Janet and Alastair,
Robin's also feeling the effect of subsidy changes.
All the support mechanisms for agriculture have all gone
to the big profitable outfits.
It's become very unfair, to be quite honest,
but the politics that are behind it and the way everything's going
and the Brexit and whatever else...
I honestly don't see things improving a lot over the next...
Probably at least the next eight or nine years, if not longer.
Farmers and crofters with the poorest quality land now receive
approximately 90% less than those with the same acreage
of better land. We just have to work with what we've got, you know.
It's like the weather. You can't do anything about it.
You've just got to...
..work with it rather than work against it, you know?
Further south near Aberdeen...
..Mel and Martin are also contemplating their future.
LAMB BLEATS
It's a baby, like you.
Look. A baby like you.
LAMB BLEATS
Aww. Baba.
Baba.
Lambing is going well with the flock at the estate.
So, we've just hit a milestone.
We've got probably about 600 sheep to lamb and this is us marking up
number 200.
We're over a third of the way there.
I'm looking forward to when it's more like 500 and 600.
Still have 400 to go.
But the extra work is taking its toll.
It's just hard doing the work here and having to go home
and do work there and come back up here.
A lot of juggling between here and home.
In fact, the juggling between two farms has been playing on Mel
and Martin's minds and they've come to a decision.
So, this is going to be our last lambing here at the Drummuir estate.
It's just too tiring. I think the big factor was Erin.
With Erin coming on now, we're only just spending enough time with her.
So we've taken an executive decision to pack it in, really.
It's a shame because the sheep are now where we want them to be.
They're looking well. We've got our own stamp on the place
and it's a shame to give it up.
Priorities change and she is our main priority.
Don't get me wrong, I still love sheep and I'm hoping
that there will still be sheep at home,
which I'm pretty sure that there will be.
As much as we need the money,
I think it's just more important that we spend time with Erin.
And in the mix of it all, you know, we are wanting
another baby, so that might just get thrown in there somewhere, maybe.
There's more to life than work, work, work.
It'll mean a £15,000 drop in their income, but despite their decision,
there's still hope that Erin might be bitten by the farming bug.
She'll get every chance to be what she wants. She can be a sheep girl,
or a cattle girl, or a tractor girl.
She might be a hairdresser.
She might be a hairdresser. She won't be a hairdresser, will you?
You'll be a little farmer, surely.
It's nearing the end of Mel and Martin's work at the estate...
..and time for the gimmer and her adopted baby to move on too.
Yeah, she wants it, which is nice.
She's making her mummy noises to it.
Happy days. We like things like that.
So we're going take little 201.
She's been in her small pen for two days now, so after two days,
come into to this bigger pen and the lamb can learn to look for Mum
and follow Mum in a bigger space.
The gimmer and her adopted lamb have only ever been
in a single pen together.
The big test now is whether they recognise each other
in a larger pan,
surrounded by the sounds and smells of other ewes and lambs.
Happy days.
On the west coast in Appin...
EINEY: Hello! I'm home.
You're home? Coffee? No, thanks, Einey.
Don't want any coffee.
Oooh!
David and Sandra's parrot Einey has finally broken his silence.
This way. This way. This way.
The parrot never shuts up, does he?
But now Einey's not the only baby in the household.
I'm coming in here to look at your babies.
Flash has had her litter of puppies.
Four little babies.
They're now two weeks old.
You're feeding lots, and you've lots of milk for your babies.
Yeah, she's such a good mum.
You know, she doesn't mind me
in here with her pups, touching them or anything.
She knows.
I'm your mum and you're their mum, hm?
Kind of sweet.
Next time...
Up. Come on.
..one of Stevie's buffalo refuses to budge...
I've just given you 25 girls and you want to lie in a puddle.
What's your problem?
..Janet and Alastair get up close to Mull's wildlife...
It's a break from lambing, feeding deer.
Nice to get away and do something different.
..and David and Sandra have to leave a wedding when disaster
strikes the farm.
Hopefully, there isn't any more problems. I'm not dressed for it.
Subtitles by Ericsson