The week before your first sheep arrive is not the time to be ordering feed or discovering a gap in the hedge. Sheep settle fastest on a holding where everything is already in place, and they are expert at finding the one weakness you meant to fix. Work through the holding in the order the sheep will meet it: boundary first, then shelter and water, then feed and kit, and finally the paperwork and people.
Walk and fix the boundary first
Sheep fencing fails at the details, so walk every metre of it. Look for gaps under hedges, loose netting, broken rails and gates that swing or leave a lamb-sized space at the post. New arrivals, unsettled by the journey, push at boundaries far more than a settled flock, and a sheep that gets out on day one has learned a route it will try again. Check the gate into the field actually latches and cannot be lifted off its hinges. Make one secure field completely right rather than every field nearly right, because the flock can live in that field while you finish the rest.
Shelter, water and a handling corner
Set up the field itself next. Sheep need shelter from driving rain and hot sun: a field shelter, a good hedge or access to a barn, positioned on the driest ground you have. Clean and fill the water trough and check the supply reaches it without a fight. Then build yourself a handling corner: a small pen of hurdles in one corner of the field where you can gather the flock calmly and catch an individual sheep for foot checks and close inspection. Trying to catch loose sheep across an open field is miserable for everyone; a simple corner pen makes every future job, from worming to loading, calmer and safer.
Stock the feed store and the kit cupboard
Buy in hay for bad weather and settling-in days, plus the concentrate feed and mineral supplement formulated for sheep. That last point matters: sheep are unusually sensitive to copper, and minerals or feeds made for cattle or goats can carry levels that poison them, so buy the sheep-specific product every time. Walk the field once for hazards too, clearing rubbish, wire and anything sharp, and checking for poisonous plants along the hedges that should be removed or fenced off. Assemble the basic kit: buckets, a crook or halter, hoof trimmers, and a notebook or phone record for treatments and dates, so nothing depends on memory.
Paperwork, plans and people
Use the last days for arrangements. Register with a farm vet before you need one, and agree a worming and vaccination plan in advance so the flock's health calendar starts on arrival rather than after the first problem. Ask the seller what the sheep are currently fed and when they were last wormed or treated, and keep your quarantine thinking straight: new sheep should be watched closely in their first weeks and handled after any other stock you keep. Finally, share the work: assigning the week's preparation jobs, from fence walking to feed buying, through KinsLe's Care Teams gives each helper clear duties, and every finished task is marked with a timestamp, so on arrival day you know the holding is ready rather than hoping it is.