Hadassah and her twins

Hadassah’s ram lamb and ewe lamb

Herse and her twin ewes

Maibh’s ram lamb

Matilde and her ewe lamb; Sarah and Sally

Matilde’s ewe lamb

Lambing season has come and gone, so it’s time to take a look at the numbers.  Only two of our girls chose to lamb inside the comfort of the barn, about a quarter of them moseyed down over the hill and had their little ones in the woods, while everyone else decided that the pasture was the best place to be.  Almost all the girls had early morning lambs and somehow, we miraculously got through the whole season without a single all night lambing session!

Our girls, along with new ram, Montague, and third-year ram, Frey, performed admirably.  97% of the ewes exposed to the rams had lambs.  84% of the ewes settled on the first cycle.  There were 20 singles, 15 sets of twins and 1 set of triplets resulting in a 1.47 lambing ratio.  There were 24 ewe lambs and 29 ram lambs.  37 of the lambs are white and 16 are black or silver.

Helen had the smallest lamb – a little black ram weighing 6 lbs 11 ozs.  Althea had the biggest – a big black ram weighing 14 lbs 3 ozs.  The average birth weight was 10 lbs 5 ozs.

And so, our favorite time of year has successfully come to an end… now on to the big job of taking care of everyone through the long, hot summer.