Tag: lambing

Busy with lambing

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The barn is a very active place right now, all 10 lambing jugs are full and a makeshift pen is waiting in the wings.100_8075 Total lamb count so far is 21, with many unexpected twins to first-timers!100_8079 Some are nearing ready to be turned out to the pasture to open up jugs for new lambs, and some have already been released to enjoy the sunshine of the great outdoors. 100_8076We are enjoying the sounds of mommas calling to lambs, and the little baas of the lambs answering. We are also enjoying the peacefulness of them resting calmly together.100_8078It is a very tiring but rewarding time of year. Everyone is anxiously awaiting the arrival of our first colored lambs as the first 21 have all been white.

Two more lambs to share

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Wednesday afternoon Princess delivered a beautiful little ewe which we are excited about. Her lambs are always the fastest growers, and this is her first ewe so we shall see if she grows as well as her ram lambs did. She is still damp in this picture so it is not the best:100_8064 Then, early this morn, around 1 a.m., we got our first purebred border leicester… a ram lamb from Kelly:100_8069 A rather handsome little fellow who will hopefully be a great stud ram for someone’s fiber farm.

Our First Lamb of 2010 has Arrived

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Our first lamb was born last night: a robust little 9 lb 12 oz ram lamb who is three-quarters border leicester and has the sweetest little face and quiet Baaaa!


After the challenging winter and amidst our healing…how fitting is it that our first lamb #1001 is the son of #801 Patience, and grandson of #21 Hope?

We may have to break our “Do Not Name the Rams” rule for this little guy.
Anyone have name suggestions?

Late Bloomers… err.. Lambers

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We love looking at the pictures of the new Pygora kids at Painted Shadow Farm, and although it is quite pleasurable to watch the early lambers… such as Leyden Glen Farm and Romney Ridge Farm…
we are quite content for the time being to sit on the sidelines and observe… living vicariously through their tales of vaginal prolapses and bottle babies, and of course rejoicing with them in their triumphs over adversity.

And really never, have we been ever so grateful for our decision to be among the late lambers as we have been this winter. The thought of dealing with all this snow and lambing is just intolerable. It makes the thought of bringing newborn lambs and mama up over the hill… well after midnight… in the pouring rain… seem almost pleasant.

We are truly looking forward to days like these…


Aaahhh… sunshine… and baby lambs… anticipation… allowing us to somewhat ignore the 3-day winter storm watch once again coming our way.

The Final Lamb

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Grace, the orphan straggler, presented us with a lovely ewe lamb early Sunday morning. She has a very cute little Border Leicester face and weighed 8 lbs 10 ozs. It is a big relief to be done with lambing for another season, but it won’t be long before the wheels start turning as we begin to think about the ultimate breeding combinations, once again.
Right now, though, we will enjoy watching this most recent crop of lambs grow and develop, and of course look forward to their wonderful fall wool clip.

Athena’s First Ewe Lamb

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The lovely Athena had a wonderful set of twins last Monday. Our 5-year old Coopworth x Border Leicester ewe had given us 5 lambs the past three years – all rams! So this year we were patiently waiting… and waiting, and finally this first-born, 7 lb white ewe appeared. She was followed shortly thereafter by a really nice silver and black, 8 lb 2 oz ram lamb.

The happy family is shown below, a few days later, with little Mr. 932 making himself right at home in the feeder.

Sarah in Relation to Sally

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This is Sarah. There is much excitement about Sarah! She is a Border Leicester out of Abby and Saul. The cause for excitement is that she is the grand-daughter of our old girl, Sally Ann.

We were given Sally when we bought some other registered Border Leicester ewes several years ago. Already an ‘older’ ewe, she was just kind of thrown in for good measure… you know. Well, Sally became a beloved member of our flock and gave us three good years of ram lambs before dying last summer. All summer we talked about how disappointed we were that we had no ewe lamb to carry on Sally’s lineage. But, we held on to Sally’s ’07 ram lamb and decided to use him this year on some of the BL ewes. We are so happy we did.

The second cause for excitement is that for five days we thought that Abby had a ram lamb… no excuse other than punch-drunk exhaustion. So… we are pretty darn excited that she actually had this 9 lb beauty of a ewe! Still thinking there might have been some kind of divine intervention happening there…

Catching Up

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Last week was a crazy one. We had lots of rain, a day of sleet and hail, followed by a day of this –

Thank goodness, bluer skies prevailed the rest of the week.

And we spent a lot of time doing this… in the 80+ degree weather that followed.

But, it was all worthwhile because we had a lot of rewards like this –

Meet Flora and Fauna, born to Sweet Pea (Lincoln cross) out of Liam (BL). Born around 5 a.m., Flora weighed 10 lbs 10 ozs and Fauna weighed 10 lbs. This was a cold, rainy morning, and Sweet Pea decided to have them half in, half out the open barn door. We put the little coats on to warm them up a bit after their chilly start.

Slowly, but surely, we are going to catch up with pictures of all the lambs, so stay tuned.

Meet Juliet

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She is our little premie. Born around 8:30 a.m. yesterday, she did not even attempt to get up to nurse. She could not stand nor hold her head up. Even after hours of drying, massaging, etc. her back legs were still like wet noodles. We kept her under a heat lamp. We fed her lamb milk replacer, electrolytes and extra dextrose, calcium, etc. We even took turns sleeping on the floor next to her little box. So, after all this and a couple vitamin B shots…. TA DA!

We might actually have to name her Wonder Woman!