INFANTICIDE on a grand scale has taken place on the farm – a lamb and a nest full of potential guinea fowl keets. The first squashed, the others abandoned, trampled and then strewn out of the nest.

The drama started shortly after seven in the morning. One of the older ewes produced a rather shaky pair of lambs a couple of days previous. Both lambs needed extra feeds. A lot of wobbling and little gambolling.

Mum was placed in a superior pen in the foldyard. It is usually reserved for triplets, but given as a precautionary step with this pair of fragile lambs, so they have been given extra space for manoeuvrability and comfort. Several other lambs and ewes born on the same day are now out in the field, but this family group has been kept inside to make sure the lambs are getting sufficient milk.

So shortly after six, John had given both of the lambs a supplementary feed. But at seven he spotted mum was comfortably stretched out having a snooze on top of one of them. I knew he was upset because 50 yards away, outside the farmhouse back door, I heard a stream of invective about the ewe featuring a rhyming couplet that was strangely associated with ducking and cupid.

John emerged from the shed with the limp lamb dangling from his hand. Tongue extruded from its head, the lamb had every appearance of being lifeless. In minutes, we had a heat lamp strung up in the meal shed and the lamb curled up in an old bucket on a bed of straw.

For the next half hour I rubbed its chest, blew into its mouth until a semblance of regular breathing trembled through its tiny frame. I then transferred the lamb into an old box to give it more space to flex its limbs as its legs seemed incredibly long for the suddenly wizened body.

Gradually, the lamb’s tongue shrank back into its mouth. We’re winning, I thought. John gave the lamb a tube feed of milk for an energy boost, but 20 minutes later the lamb died. You win some, you lose some, but it is always hard when you lose.

My guinea fowl débâcle was revealed one afternoon. A friend had given me a sitting of eggs laid by guinea fowl hatched from eggs I gave her last year. A fortnight ago I had a surfeit of broody hens and nothing, bar our own eggs, to put under them. Friend Marian solved my problem with a box of potential keets.

The broody took to them like a dream. Until one day. After sitting on them for a fortnight she became disenchanted with the concept of motherhood and abandoned the nest. Indeed, trashed the nest. Never mind infanticide. Flockicide and clutchicide is what we have here. I think.