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Lack­ham enjoys one of its most suc­cess­ful Lamb­ing Events ever


Being able to hold and feed the lambs made for one of the most successful lambing events ever at Wiltshire College & University Centre.

That, coupled with glorious sunshine and warm temperatures, saw more than 10,000 visitors come to the Lackham campus for the last two weekends of March.

This year around 800 ewes were expecting 1,500 lambs, and many of those who came along, had the chance to see lambs being born.

Almost 500 of those were twins, there were 96 sets of triplets three quads and 200 single lambs.

Ian Revill, Assistant Principal for Lackham, said: “This year’s Lambing Weekends were a tremendous success.

“The weather has a huge impact all round and having no mud, rain or snow to contend with always helps and means that we attract more visitors.

“A huge hit this year was the chance for our visitors to pet and bottle feed the lambs that are being hand reared.

“The lambs seemed completely unphased by having so many children looking after them.

“The students did a great job of driving the visitors around the farm using a dozen tractors, whilst other students talked to the public and sold refreshments and produce.

“Our agriculture students have been working extremely hard not just delivering and looking after the lambs during the lambing weekends but 24 hours a day over the past few weeks.”

Throughout lambing, agriculture students work around the clock preparing, looking after the ewes and ensuring the safe arrival of the lambs.

Evie Freeman-Jones started her Level 2 Agriculture apprenticeship in September and said she has thoroughly enjoyed being involved in lambing, during which time she has been assessed on her work.

The 17-year-old said: “I came to Lackham as a pre-16 student with the original aim of being a vet.

“I have loved working on the farms at Lackham and as well as working with the animals I also enjoy getting the opportunity to work with different machinery.

“Lambing has been a really fantastic experience for me, being involved with all aspects from them actually being born to ringing, tagging and worming them, as well as talking to members of the public about them and looking after the hand-reared lambs.”

In addition to seeing the lambs, visitors were also able to see the dairy cows being milked – the milk from which goes to Cadbury and pigs. Another highlight for visitors was taking the tractor and trailer ride between the two farms.

There are still around 50 lambs due to be born before lambing will be over for another year.

In the next 12 months the Lackham campus will benefit from almost £9 million investment.

Ian added: “We are excited about showing people what we will be delivering at Lackham and hope that the development works will be well on the way to being finished before the event next year including a new robotic dairy, which we will be building.”

If you would like to find out more about the range of courses we offer at our Lackham campus, come along to our Open Event on Saturday 27th April from 10am-12noon.

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