WEARDALE farmer's wife Barbara Coulthard used to spend an average of three hours a day, for more than six weeks, bottle-feeding orphan and surplus lambs.

Now an automatic feeder has slashed the task to just 20 minutes a day - and the lambs are said to be doing better, too.

Mrs Coulthard and her husband, Michael, run Bridge End Farm, a 503-acre hill unit at Westgate, near Stanhope.

"Managing orphan and surplus lambs nowadays takes 10pc of the time it used to when we bottle fed or adopted them on to a ewe", said Mrs Coulthard, who described the hours she spent, at the busiest and most stressful time in their farming calendar, simply looking after surplus lambs.

"My time could have been spent more valuably in the lambing shed and I knew that, however well I managed these lambs, bottle-feeding four times a day could never replace natural mothering.

"However, we persevered as there was no alternative from a moral or welfare point of view and we firmly believe in looking after our stock to the best of our ability."

The couple run 70 suckler cows and a flock of 500 Swaledale ewes, primarily for producing Mule gimmers, and 100 Mule ewes put to the Suffolk for finished lamb.

They work hard to maintain a sustainable business by maximising output from carefully selected quality stock and a relatively moderate input regime.

In 2003, Mule ewes averaged 207pc lambs reared and Swaledales 180pc. The majority of Mule ewes lamb within the first 16 days of March and the Swaledales follow one month later. The couple manage the entire operation themselves.

"We'd heard about the benefits of hiring an automatic feeder and were considering investing in one ourselves," said Mrs Coulthard. "The push came eight years ago when Michael suffered a bad accident. Labour was so scarce and I couldn't face the time consuming, tedious chore of bottle feeding and adopting."

The Coulthards hired an autofeeder from Volac International and have never looked back.

Mrs Coulthard's time with the surplus lambs has been cut to 20 minutes a day and almost 100pc are consistently reared to an average 9.5kg at weaning at six weeks.

"Last year we put 108 lambs through the system at an average cost of £33.70 a head, which included straw, hay, sundries, concentrate finishing and automatic feeder hire," said Mr Coulthard. "We ended up with a quality animal to market that matches a naturally reared lamb and leaves us with a margin. There's also the spin-off of enabling a ewe to look after her remaining lambs more efficiently, be they twins or single."

The couple's crop of Mule gimmers, which included surplus lambs sold in 2003 to average £69.72, saw all the remaining surplus lambs finished indoors to a target 18kg deadweight at 16 weeks.

Last year, Mule wethers levelled at £44.60 and Suffolk cross lambs at an average £49.30.

"We trade all our finished lambs through the ring and they tend to sell to repeat buyers," said Mr Coulthard.

All potential surplus lambs are left on their dams for the first 24 hours. Within six hours of birth they are bottle-fed Volac Volostrum, a natural alternative to colostrum, then treated with oxytetracyclin and their navels dipped with iodine.

They are taken to an introduction pen for 24 hours to learn from older surplus lambs how to suck warm milk from a soft teat, and then move on to the main group of up to 25 lambs per pen, with a maximum of 12 lambs sharing one teat. They are fed ad-lib Lamlac, a 24pc protein, 24pc oil, ewe milk replacer maintained at 20- 22C from the automatic feeder.

"Drinking little and often virtually eliminates the chance of digestive upset and over the next six weeks they consume an average 1.5 litres a day," said Mrs Coulthard.

"I spend 20 minutes a day washing out the automatic feeder and teats and replenishing the Lamlac, which is automatically mixed. As far as the machine is concerned, we just check the calibrations each week and, if there happened to be a major problem or breakdown, the feeder is covered by Volac's 24 hour back-up."

The lambs are also offered fresh water daily, plus creep feed and top quality hay. They are accommodated in a well-ventilated shed, bedded daily with straw sprinkled with powdered disinfectant and cleaned out every ten days.

"Surplus lambs are weaned abruptly and moved on to larger sheds where the Mule wethers and Suffolk crosses are finished intensively to target weight," said Mrs Coulthard. "The Mule gimmers are turned out on to clean grazing at around 16 weeks and shortly afterwards introduced to their naturally reared siblings.

"It's impossible to tell the difference between artificially-reared and naturally-reared Mule gimmers; they've the same frame and weight and there's certainly no behavourial difference. Introducing an automatic feeder was one of the best decisions we ever made.