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Summer finally appears to be here though it seems like just a short time ago I was bundled in my winter gear. OK so it was just a short time ago I was bundled in my winter gear. There were a few nights in the barn during lambing when I had a few layers on to keep warm.
Our ewes had their lambs between May 6th and May 23rd. We have 24 healthy lambs who are growing like weeds. Lesson learned this year; don't feed the ewes as much protein before lambing. Some of our lambs were huge... like 14 lb twins and a 17 lb single. All arrived safely save one but I spent much more time with my arm up the back end of a ewe than I would like either for my sake and for the sake of the ewes.
We had our first set of triplets this year and while the mom is handling them well, I am just as happy with a set of healthy twins. I am not interested in sheep that produce litters since I figure that bottle feeding just about kills my profit on a lamb, plus it is hard not to get attached to the little lambs if you are hand feeding them three to four times a day.
We are bottle feeding a single ewe lamb.... Little Girl. She is still with her mom but because of past problems with mastitis, the ewe does not produce enough milk for the two lambs. She knows her name and will come running out of the flock for her bottle.
We are heading into haying season and somewhere in between I need to plant my veggy garden. WHAT HAPPENED TO SPRING?
TTFN
Laurie
Like two synchronized swimmers going through their routine, the last of our two ewes lambed simultaneously two days ago. We had what I considered a very successful second lambing season. 10 of the 11 mature ewes lambed out. We do not know whether the 11th ewe caught and lost her lamb or did not catch. With the 10 ewes that lambed we had 18 lambs. One was stillborn but test results showed no obvious cause so it was not a management problem on our part.
Now we can finally sleep through the night. But I am not through fussing about them. Until they are about one week old I always fuss about whether they are nursing enough etc. I worry about infections in the ewe, mastitis etc. OK I just fuss. Thank goodness I didn't have children of my own because I would have driven them and me crazy.
We record tons of information during births so that we can start to recognize norms and when to intervene. I needed to intervene with two births. One where the lamb was backwards with one hoof caught behind the pelvic bone and the second presenting forwards with one leg back. I am pleased to say that both lambs are fine as are the moms.
We also collect other information that is interesting but I don't know how relevant it is. We have had 14 sets of twins. We have only had ewe/ewe twins or ewe/ram twins. In all the mixed sex twins but one, the ram twin was born first. Go figure!
The sheep will all be out on pasture in the next week. And things quiet down to leave us time to hay.
TTFN,
Laurie
