At the foot of the mountains is the market town of Castlewellan. It is home to the Castle Vets practice, where the team is being kept busy by the rush of newborns.

Terry, one of the senior vets, is on a call-out to a local farm, one of 12 such visits he makes every day in spring. Each case requires a degree of detective work, but with seven years on the job, there is little Terry hasn’t seen before. This morning, all he knows is that a pregnant cow is losing weight. He examines the cow carefully and rules out several common complaints. Finally, he makes a clever diagnosis based on smell alone.

The Mournes offer more than just farm animals to care for. Twenty miles away, vet Nuala is taking the ferry across Strangford Lough. She is paying a visit to the local sea life sanctuary, where an orphaned seal is in need of a health check before it is released back into the wild.

Nuala remembers trips to this aquarium as a child, and her next stop is at another familiar haunt - her own family farm, where her father and brother have 200 dairy cows.

Nuala is here to spend the morning pregnancy-testing the livestock, an important job that lets her family plan the year ahead. She knows that after a hard morning’s work, there will be a hearty family breakfast waiting for her.

Over in Downpatrick, Jennie has recently returned home to work in the Mournes, where she finds it is easier to balance work and family. That is more important than ever because Jennie is now expecting a baby. It means she can’t work with farm animals so is confined to running the small animal clinic.

One of her patients is Minnie the jack russell. She is another mum-to-be and has delivered one of her pups. But there are more still to come, and Minnie’s labour has slowed dangerously. Jennie has to act fast if she is to save the lives of the rest of Minnie’s litter, leading to a difficult decision for owner Jamie.

Fifteen miles away, Castlewellan vet Darren is running a clinic dedicated to farm emergencies, when farmer Emmet arrives with two ewes. Both are in labour and having complications. They are pedigree texels, whose large size makes their lambs difficult to deliver. Darren is in for a long day’s work with these two expectant mums. Show less