NEW born lambs have been a major casualty of the unexpected Arctic weather which cut off parts of Cumbria and the Dales at the weekend.

Deep snow drifts isolated hundreds of acres of pasture, leaving farmers unable to help stricken ewes as they delivered their lambs in the unseasonal Arctic blast.

Furness farmer Frank Jackson fears he has lost around 50 ewes and up to 200 lambs.

Mr Jackson, 85, who has farmed at Standish Cote, near Marton, for six decades, said: “I’m devastated. I’ve never known worse conditions. I’ve found two dead ewes this morning.

“On Friday and Saturday it was a complete white-out, with strong winds blowing the snow. You just couldn’t see. We have some very deep gullies on the farm and the ewes will go down into them to shelter and that’s when they get completely covered in snow.

“It’s hard for me at 85 to get round all the land to find the sheep. We have some gullies on the land that are 30 feet deep and they’re filled with snow.”

Ravenglass farmer Alistair Mackintosh estimated that he had lost more than 100 lambs and 10 ewes.

“It took us two to three days to dig our way out of the farm so we could get to the fields,” he said. “It’s been terrible this year because the snow came when we were right in the middle of lambing.”

 

Matt Stephenson, of Salterwath Farm, Shap, said he managed to save lambs by moving 850 pregnant ewes into a large purpose-built lambing shed.
 

“We decided to build the shed last year after losing a few lambs because of snow in April,” he said.
 

“Previously we would lamb half our ewes outside and half inside. The shed cost a lot of money and we were worried it might not have been worth it – but now we’re really glad we did it.”
 

William Lambert, who farms at Raygill near Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales, said farmers had had enough.
 

“If the weather doesn’t change soon, people will be getting very depressed. Mentally it’s very tough for us to see our new-born lambs struggling to survive because of the wintry weather.”