It is a special day for sheep holder Riaan Vijfom from Heeze. Thursday the hundredth lamb was born and it was the day that the first lambs were allowed outside. “After a year full of misery this is a holiday.” Many of his sheep died due to blue tongue.
With a careful sunshine, the first fifty lambs are taken into the meadow. The motherhood runs into the pasture, the lambs are looking a bit awkward in the trailer. But once on the grass, the young animals start running and jumping and a little later they are enjoying the sun’s rays.
“It’s spring, it’s spring, it has started,” Riaan shouts over the fields in Heeze. The joy comes from deep to the shepherd. “After last year with the blue tongue it was all exciting whether it would work. It was really horrible. ” He lost ten percent of his herd, about 140 sheep, to the disease last year.
Riaan exchanged the care of the sheep about ten years ago. “Sheep mean everything for me,” he says with a smile. “I really thought last year, just like many colleagues, that it was over with all my sheep.”
As a miracle everything worked well and on this ‘holiday’ the lambs hop around. “A number of rams had escaped and eventually ended up with the ‘retired’ ladies. Many lambs came from there wonderfully. We lost ten percent, but the escaped rams made it up again. “
Thursday morning the hundredth lambs of this still early year was born. And exactly on that day the first fifty were also allowed outside. Passers -by were surprised because lambs on February 6 is on the early side. “These are made to be able to withstand some cold,” explains Riaan.
The lambs crawl against their mother at night. “Only with rain, cold and a strong wind can it be difficult for a while. But breast milk and the warm fur of mother is enough.” Every evening the satisfied shepherd comes to look at his sheep around ten: “And then I only see happy lambs.”
