A Friday ritual.
A single photo – no words – capturing a single moment from the week
A simple, special extraordinary moment.
A moment to pause, savor and remember.
Participating with the SouleMama blog.
{this moment}
Tag: in the barn
Birthing
Lambing is moving along at a nice pace. The barn and pasture are busy and full of new life. It’s always so interesting to observe the different way each ewe experiences labor and birth. There is Jill who attacks the whole process with much the same energy that she attacks daily life. She will have given birth within a couple hours of showing any outward signs of labor. Then there is Julie who has a much more zen-like approach to birth, slowly stretching and pushing a little off and on for eight to ten hours. Every birth different… each new life, a new little personality.
Please check out our Lambs of 2014 album on Flickr for more lamb photos.
Scenes from the Buckwheat Festival
Moving Along
Finally a little activity on the lambing front yesterday. Rosey was kind enough to have big, wonderful twin rams right in the most lovely patch of sunlight. Her first born weighed 12 lbs 8 ozs, and the second weighed 14 lbs 7 ozs.
The second born, Little Mister 1313 was very vocal from the moment he hit the ground.
Grace, a soon to be first-time mama came racing into the barn to see what all the fuss was about.
Later in the day, Faith, Grace’s twin sister, gave birth to a black ram with beautiful wool. He seemed small but weighed 11 lbs 1 ozs. We’ve posted a short video, ‘Faith’s First Lamb’ that shows Faith shortly after giving birth. It shows a little bit of the confusion that a first-time mama goes through before getting used to their new role. We’re so proud of Faith, she is doing a great job.
And as a grand finale to the day, we had to give a little assistance to Princess as she gave birth to a whopper of a ewe lamb, weighing 15 lbs 12 ozs. It’s hard to tell from this photo, but she is huge. We’ll try to share a better photo later. This little one had a rough entry into the world, but seems to be doing great.
More tomorrow… have a great evening!
Full Moon
Despite the full moon, there were no lambs born yesterday. The ewes spent most of the day in the pasture in a seemingly meditative state soaking up the sun, and of course eating… there’s a lot of eating going on.
We moved three groups of lambs and their mamas out to the nursery paddock, where they enjoyed getting to know their older cousins, running, jumping and exploring.
All this lack of cooperation inactivity on the ewe’s part, gave us the opportunity to clean out the barn, move some things around and set up additonal lambing jugs. So in answer to Boo’s Mom’s question yesterday, here’s a little more about jugs. A lambing jug is a small pen where the ewe and lambs are moved shortly after birth. Unless there is a problem or really bad weather, we usually wait until after the lambs are up and have eaten. This short confinement (usually two or three days) promotes bonding and gives us the opportunity to watch for any problems the ewe or lamb may experience in those first few days. After using old wooden pallets and assorted other recycled items, we have slowly invested in this system of welded wire panels and connector hinges. They are very sturdy and easy to climb in and out of. They allow us to use our barn space more efficiently as they can be quickly put up, taken down, moved or reconfigured..
Hebe, Patience and their twins are the only occupants at the moment. They’re getting lonely… come on girls, let’s get moving.
Saturday in the Pasture
A foggy, early morning greeting at the barn was followed by a most enthusiastic group of lambs coming into the barn for FAMACHA scoring. We have been lucky that this year’s lambs come right in, all the way into the barn without requiring one of the shepherdess/s becoming a border collie.
Once we finished the scoring, we thought we better separate the yearling ewes from Liam before they begin cycling, and we were surprised next spring by very early lambs.
That went very smoothly, except for Larry and Moe who were left behind with Liam. They spent much of the day walking the fence line; trying to figure out why they weren’t allowed to join the others. They finally gave up and settled under a shade tree.
The yearling ewes moved through the pasture in a huddled group for awhile, but in no time at all were grazing right along side the breeding ewes, happy in their new paddock.
Weekly Top Shot
We’re sharing a peek at one of Juliet’s twins, little Miss 1206, who along with her sister is enjoying the move to larger quarters this week. We’re not quite confident in Juliet’s abilities to keep track of twins so she and her twins along with Daisy and her triplets will be building mothering skills in a separate temporary paddock.
Joining The View From Right Here for the Weekly Top Shot. Thanks for the invitation!