: Museums, Exhibitions and Events

Another successful lambing season at St Fagans is drawing to a close. We hope you’ve enjoyed watching all the action live on Lambcam along the way. There are still a few ewes left to deliver, as I write this the lamb-o-meter has clocked up 144. We’re on course to beat our target of 150 lambs, and hope to pass 160. That figure includes:

• 5 sets of triplets
• One set of quads (our first ever).

There’s been some losses along the way:

• One set of twins - early miscarriage.
• One set of twins – stillborn.
• Four lambs accidentally smothered by their mothers
• One triplet failed to thrive – died at 2 days old.

We are expecting to finish with two lambs being bottle fed – that’s Herbert, the smallest of the quads, and another lamb whose mother's milk dried up due to mastitis. So until next year, here is a picture of Herbert enthusiastically tucking into his lunch yesterday.

Herbert the lamb eating his lunch - with half of it over his face

See you in 2016 Lambcam-ers!

Hello Lambcam-ers - here is the answer to the most frequently asked question of this year's lambing season.

'How can you tell when a sheep is in labour?'

Here are some of the signs that you can look out for:

• Hiding away quietly in the corner – this behaviour would be to avoid predators in the wild.
• Licking the lips – a preparation for cleaning the lamb after it is born.
• Restless standing up and lying down.
• Pawing at the ground – scratching up a soft ‘nest’ for the lamb to be born into.
• Visible straining at regular intervals.
• Visible mucus, water bag or a pair of feet protruding from the ewe’s back end!

And now here's a gratuitously cute picture of St Fagans first ever set of quads. Born last night...

Watch a view live from the lambing shed to see the action unfold

As part of the redevelopment project at St.Fagans National History Museum, we wish to open our doors to volunteers and invite them to work alongside the Preventive Conservation team, helping to care for the collections on open display in the historic houses. There are hundreds of objects on display ranging from furniture, textiles, pottery and agricultural equipment. Providing plenty of opportunities to share a skill or learn something new.

Caring for this site is no mean feat, we currently have 26 furnished properties including a castle. Plus there are 4 new buildings on the way, including a medieval hall and the Vulcan pub! So plenty to keep us busy. The Museum is also open throughout the year and can have up to 700,000 visitors during that time, which means we are kept on our toes making sure everything continues to look good, day in and day out.

This work is a combined effort, involving staff from many different sections, which often goes on behind the scenes unnoticed by visitors. However, we wish to change this and provide opportunities for volunteers to assist us, not only in the care of objects, but also contribute to interpretation and help inform the public.

We are currently refurbishing one of the cottages on site, aiming to provide a comfortable and creative work space for our new collection care volunteers. We hope to start recruiting in May so if you're interested, I'll be posting more updates as the project continues to progress.

We’re in the process of preparing objects to go on display in the new galleries that are being built on the site of St Fagans.  #makinghistory  

As the textile conservator, I have come across three objects that, though they are kept in the textile store, are not exclusively made of textile but have paper components and have botanical specimens attached, neither of which come under my area of expertise.  Hence, I’ve roped in my two colleagues, the  Senior Conservator Archives and the Senior Conservator Natural Sciences and the three of us will now jointly treat these objects. 

Joint projects are always a great opportunity for sharing skills and learning from colleagues so we’re all really looking forward to this!

• There are currently about 100 breeding ewes in the flock and we expect 150+ lambs.
• Our ewes are 2 years old the first time they lamb.
•  The gestation period for a sheep is 5 months:

1. The ewes come into season in September.
2. We put our rams in the field in with the girls on 1st October.
3. Lambing will commence in the first week of March.
4. We choose this schedule in order to have lambs on show in the fields for Easter.

•  The pregnant ewes come in from the field just after Christmas for extra care, shelter and food. This is important for strong lamb development.
• The ewes are all scanned in the New Year and we separate them into two groups:

1. Those expecting a single lamb in one group.
2. Those expecting twins or triplets in the other.

• Normal presentation for a lamb to be born is head and forelegs first. If this is the case then the ewes can normally manage with no assistance. They will sometimes need help if the lamb is particularly big, or if it is coming the wrong way round.
• Once they have given birth, the ewe and her lambs will be put into a separate pen:

1. This allows the bonding process to happen.
2. It prevents the ewes that haven’t lambed yet from overenthusiastically ‘adopting/stealing’ someone else’s baby!
3. They stay separate for 1–2 days.
4. Weather permitting, healthy ewes and lambs can go out into the field after 3–5 days.

•  It is normal for ewes to have blood and mucus around their back ends after giving birth.
•  It is normal for new babies to sleep a lot – newborn lambs will sleep for 12–16 hours a day.
• We will probably keep or sell most of the female lambs as pedigree breeding stock, most of the males will go for meat with a few of the best sold as breeding rams.
•  Lamb on your plate is anything from 4–12 months old.