Tup Tup Tupping

These are our four charolais Tups, big boys arent they? They have spent the summer doing nothing, bit of eating, bit of wrestling with each other, but mostly they have just spent the time in the paddock doing nothing, or not the thing we keep them for.

Now is the time for them to do their thing.

We brought them into the shed to check their feet are OK and dont need trimming, then we loaded them into the trailer and took them up to the field where the ewes are.

Here are the ewes, they all homed in on the LandRover and trailer as soon as we arrived. Richard is mixing up some Raddle, which is a sticky coloured paste we smear into the wool on the tups chest, so that when he rides the ewe it marks her bum, and we can see they have been working.
This is the last tup leaving the trailer, you can see his orange chest.

I think he looks keen.

This is the four of them heading off to sort out the girls.

Who were very pleased to see them.

If you look in the middle of the group here you can see the boys getting busy.

Richard went back today and reported that there are LOTS of sheep with orange bums.

The tups will be left there for 4 to 6 weeks then its all over for another year.