SPRING is in the air as visitors to Lackham Farm got to see 33 lambs born over the weekend.

Wiltshire College opened its Lackham campus for one of its popular lambing weekends showing how students look after 800 ewes and other animals.

They are expecting to have well over 3,000 ewes and lambs by the end of the season.

The agricultural students are working 24-7 this month in eight hour shifts to care for them during the lambing season.

Lackham campus director Ian Revill said: “It was an absolute belter of a weekend, I think we had more cars in than ever before.

“It depends how patient people are but I think a lot of them will have had the chance to see a birth. It can be as quick as 20 minutes but some of them like to tease the crowd and it can take a couple of hours or more.”

If a ewe has only one lamb she adopts one from another who has given birth to more than two.

“They thrive so much better if they have a teat each,” said Mr Revill. “After they have suckled for 24 hours they smell like her and she thinks they’re her own.

“It is a fun event and a lovely thing to do for Mother’s Day, and it is also educational, teaching about life and birth.”

As well as handling newborn lambs and having their photographs taken, families saw cows, calves, pigs and wild deer. Visitors wrapped up warm on a cold but dry weekend to have tractor and trailer rides around the Lackham estate.

There was also a round-the-farm quiz and spot the lamb competition trail, with treats for each child completing the quiz.

There is another chance to enjoy the event on March 21-22, from 10am to 5pm. The dairy cows are milked at 1.30pm.

Entry is £7 for adults and £5 for under-16s, or £25 for a family of four or more, with children under two admitted free.