Tag: lambing

Meanwhile Back in the Barn

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Spring has definitely sprung in our little corner of the world.  The redbuds are beautiful lining the river road.  The coltsfoot that provided that very first pop of roadside color have given way to the soothing white of the bloodroot, and coming up Rowlesburg hill the trilliums, both red and white, provide a blanket of blooms on the hillside.

Meanwhile, back in the barn, things are slowly moving along.  On Monday, Sweet Pea had beautiful lincoln-cross twins, a ewe weighing 11 lbs 5 ozs and a ram weighing 11 lbs 9 ozs.  Patience, not to be out done, also had a beautiful set of twins; a ram weighing 11 lbs 10 ozs and a ewe weighing 10 lbs 12 ozs.  She had them at the bottom of the hill, but kindly brought them almost to the top.  They were so cute following her up the hill.

We worked in the barn most of yesterday afternoon, moving things around and setting up additional lambing jugs.  So, in a very ‘be careful what you wish for’ kind of way, we are wishing that lambing kicks up into a little bit higher gear.  After all, we have four empty lambing jugs in the barn.

Much Ado about Something

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There has been much picture taking, discussion and general excitement on the farm today; excitement that actually started 2 years ago with a 4-H market lamb.  Bella placed very well at the Buckwheat Festival that year and was bought and given back to Lena to return to the farm flock. Lena decided to try breeding her (a Suffolk/Hampshire cross) to our Border Leicester ram to see what type of lambs would result, and if they would be anyways close to being a festival worthy market lamb, putting her with Liam earlier than our regular breeding season to get an appropriate aged lamb. As they say…the best laid plans often go awry. Bella ended up getting marked 3 breeding cycles…possible because of an oversite by us not realizing that Sampson, being the protective guard dog that he is, may not have been allowing proper breeding activity.

Well. today they arrived, the long awaited:

Two of the cutest little ‘mule’ ewes we have had ! Weighing in at 7 lb 10 oz and 6 lb 10 oz.

 
There has been a lot of excited talk and picture exchanging about the new ones….name discussions, buying offers, …
Freckles and Speckles?  Alice and Renesmee?
 
Whatever their resulting names…those adorable spotted faces are sure to bring smiles to many.
 
We will be keeping a close eye on their progress over the next few months. Another ‘donated back to exhibitor’ market lamb, Katniss, awaits to be bred this fall. 
 
 

Hermione

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Saturday found Hermione seeking a spot to rest and stretch out a little in between eating massive amounts of hay.  Sunday morning she spent a lot of time coming in and out of the barn, checking on Hannah and her twin rams.  Her lambs had dropped so we checked on her several times during the day, hoping that she would have them in the barn so that it wouldn’t be too difficult to get them in a lambing jug. 
In the end, she chose to have them out in the field, where it was warm but cloudy and a little windy.  Only a second-time mama, we managed to get Hermione and her twins into the barn with only a little crazy running and not so gentle head butting of the shepherdess.  We had the lambing jug all set up with a big feeder full of second-cutting hay and a bucket of molasses water. 
The first born, a ram, weighed 10 lbs 5 ozs, and the second, a little ewe, weighed 6 lbs 14 ozs.  We were a little worried about the ewe at first and made sure that her brother didn’t hog all the colostrum.  She was up and going strong last night when we went back to the barn to check on them.
Hermione was the other ewe that was caught during the October Snowicane.  We now have about 10 – 14 days until lambing begins in earnest.

Surprise

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You may remember the big October snow.  All the interior fencing was down for weeks, as we waited for enough snow-melt to dig out.  It was inevitable that the rams would find the only two ewes that were not to be bred this year.  Really, who could resist the romance in this snowy October sunrise.
And so… while lambing will not begin in earnest for another couple of weeks, Hannah surprised us with beautiful twin rams yesterday afternoon.  When we went to feed yesterday morning, she was the only ewe at the top of the hill, so we suspected that it might be the big day.  Last evening she had her boys tucked snugly in the barn when we checked on her.  Hannah’s twins were large – 1301 weighed 11 lbs 7 ozs and 1302 weighed 10 lbs 6 ozs.  Mama and twins are doing well and snugly tucked into the first lambing jug… an early nudge into lambing season.

Lambing at Sunrise

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(Traveling back in time to May 5th)  Sometimes it seems that things happen for a reason.  Had Meara not pushed out a water bag at 12:15 a.m.; had she pushed out that first lamb earlier than 5:30 a.m.; this beautiful, foggy sunrise would not have been witnessed from the pasture.
The sky looked pretty clear to the north, but the fog began to come up the hollow from Wolf Creek, enveloping the pasture and continuing to roll across the hayfield.  Light filled the sky and the air was filled with a lovely, rosey pink glow.  The misty fog remained, clinging to the ground… the color in the sky intensified and the sun rose high enough to be seen above the fog… a bright golden globe… SUNRISE!

Done

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Our final planned lamb was born Friday evening.  He is a beauty!  A silver, black Coopworth – Border Leicester cross out of Hebe and Liam.  Weighing in at 13 lbs 1 oz, he is a whopper!  Now the wait is on to see if Blackberry, our old girl who escaped into the breeding pen, got caught.  We sure hope not, but we’ve got a few more weeks to find out for sure.
Many thanks to our Mom for all her help in the barn this lambing season… feeding hay, filling water buckets, feeding Robbie and much more.  This was a tough one to get through.  But we are excited to say that we didn’t lose a single lamb (close a couple times), didn’t have to pull a single lamb, and all the ewes came through great.  We are feeling very blessed.

Days Five through Eighteen

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With apologies to both the reader and our wonderful breeding ewes, we are sharing these days of the lambing season in a slide show.  We still have one straggler.  Hebe has not yet lambed, but here are the rest of the 2012 lambs. Each ewe and their lambs are very different… some ewes won’t eat for hours, others get up and eat between every contraction… really every birth has its own story… here are just a few…
Julie and Jill each had their second twin almost two hours after the first; Julie having her first at 10 p.m. and her second at 11:55 p.m., coming within 5 minutes of being our first ewe to have lambs born on two different days.
Rosey and Princess had their lambs right beside each other in the barn, each continuing to try to take the other’s lamb because that was the first one seen after that final push.
Athena’s second-born whose sack did not open at all, hit the ground fully enclosed and had to have it torn open; had taken a breath inside, had to be worked on for nearly an hour; but is doing great after spending days under the heat lamp.
Meara pushed out her first water bag at 12:30 a.m. but did not get her first twin pushed out until 5:15 a.m.; allowing the shepherdess to enjoy both the gigantic full moon and a beautiful foggy, pink dawn.  Her lambs were perhaps our most vigorous, loudly baaing before their back legs were fully pushed out.
Hera, our mother of several sets of twins and two sets of triplets, had a big, single ram this year; all the way at the bottom of the hill… again.
For the shepherdess/s, each birth is a miracle… when the lamb hits the ground, takes that first breath, lifts its little head and shakes it, then that first baa… oh my… sometimes we see it, sometimes we only hear it if the lambing field is really busy, but each time it is a tug at your heartstrings… a miracle.

Day Four

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Thankfully, we were blessed with a beautiful spring day with temperatures rising to almost fifty degrees and a strong, very warm sunshine.  We were grateful that almost all the snow was melted by evening. 
Bertha who spent the night pacing outside the barn door finally had the great sense to seek shelter in the barn and after a long labor eventually pushed out a whopper of a ram – 13 lbs 11 ozs.  He is a beauty (out of Aragorn) and may be a strong candidate for Rebecca’s Boaz.  We’ll see how he grows out over the summer.

The afternoon was quiet, and it was nice to catch up on a little rest.  The sheperdess/s have reached the point in the lambing season already where it begins to look as if anyone could go at anytime.  Yet, we were a little surprised to find Aibreann cleaning off Border Leicester ewe lambs when we returned to the barn early evening.  Weighing 9 lbs 5 ozs and 10 lbs 1 oz, they are really nice size twins.  They are out of Aragorn,  quite beautiful, and have lovely, feminine faces.
Patience ran into the barn bawling frantically, looking for her lambs several times as Aibreann was cleaning off her twins.  Shortly after we moved the new twins into a lambing jug with mama, Patience delivered beautiful twin ewes of her own right outside the corral.  They are out of Liam and weighed 8 lbs 11 ozs and 9 lbs 9 ozs.  They also have lovely, dainty faces.  The twins needed a little assistance getting started eating as Patience has very large nipples.  They were doing better at 4:15 this morning but it is still taking them a little while to latch on.
Well, it is a beautiful spring morning.  The sun is shining… it’s about 45 degrees… the birds are singing.
Let’s go birth some babies!

Day Three

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Well… this is certainly not what the shepherdess/s wanted to see on the third day of lambing.  The morning barn check came with about six inches of snow on the ground, and it just kept coming all. day. long.  The day was spent cleaning the heavy, wet snow off the sagging temporary fencing, checking the field often to make sure that no one decided to lamb out in nasty weather instead of the dry warm barn.
Last week we had all the barn windows open and were running exhaust fans to rid the barn of excess heat.  The night before the storm we closed all the windows but one upstairs, and filled all the troughs and a bunch of water buckets.  This turned out to be wise because the electricity went off for about 3 1/2 hours late afternoon.  We were very lucky that it came back on before dark.
Sorry to say that no lambs were born on day three, but perhaps that was a good thing because we were kept very busy just trying to stay ahead of the snow.

Day Two

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Everything was quiet overnight, but bright and early this morning, Juliet gave birth to beautiful twin ewe lambs.  The first weighed 8 lbs and the second 8 lbs 8 ozs.  This moment has been anxiously anticipated.  Juliet was our dream lamb and the first bottle baby that we have bred.  She is three years old but was not bred last year because she was still so small.  We worried throughout the gestation period whether things would go well for her.  Well this morning about 5 a.m. she gave birth without any problems.  We had to clean the twins up for her, but she has been very gentle and has now settled in with them.  She is doing a wonderful job.  We’re just a little worried whether she will produce enough milk.  We’ll keep an eye on that.

Sweet Pea was considerate enough to wait until after breakfast before also having beautiful twin ewe lambs.  Being the veteran mama she is, she was also smart enough to have hers in the barn out of the fog and rain.  Her first lamb entered the world in what could only be described as a swirling swingshot.  The second little one came into the world much more quietly.  They are large girls the first weighing 11 lbs 1 oz and the second weighed 10 lbs 3 ozs. They are doing great.
Shortly after getting Sweet Pea and her girls into a lambing jug, we were treated to a wonderful surprise all the way at the bottom of the hill.  We left the barn to do a field check and could hear a lamb, there was Sweet Pea’s first daughter, Daisy with her lambs.  We literally could not believe our eyes.  What a wonderful surprise… it was..triplets!  They weighed 7 lbs 7 ozs, 7 lbs 10 ozs and 8 lbs 1 oz.  Little did we know that there was a very good reason that she was producing such a huge udder.  The triplets have already become known as ‘My Three Sons’ – Mike, Robbie and Chip, and of course, are the darlings of the barn.