Tag: lambs

Lambing Season Summary

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Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

We hope that you will enjoy this slide show of lambing season.  The last ewe had twins about a week ago… at 3 a.m. … at the bottom of the hill… of course.  Here is a little summary of the season that will be known as either The Year of the Big Lamb or The Year of the Ram (we haven’t quite decided which).

Lambing Ratio  1.5172
Average Weight Per Lamb  11 lbs  8 ozs
14 singles, 14 sets of twins, 1 set of triplets
16 ewe lambs, 28 ram lambs
29 white lambs, 15 black lambs

We only had two lambs that weighed under 8 lbs.  We had four lambs that weighed over 15 lbs.  The smallest lamb weighed 6 lbs 14 ozs and the largest 16 lbs 13 ozs.  We were a little disappointed in our lambing ratio this year, but hopefully we’ll have a summer filled with big, healthy lambs growing beautiful, curly wool.

A Big Day

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Yesterday was a big day, in more ways than one!  Hera who had been looking very miserable for several days, delivered triplets.  She had to have a little assistance, as the black one was trying to back its way into the birth canal and was a little sideways.  Once the shepherdess got him moving, his brothers popped right out.  Yes, they are all rams.  Having been sired by Strider, they were promptly named Merry, Pippen and Samwise.  Oh, wait… just realized that you cannot see them in the photo below because they are wearing their little hobbit cloaks of invisibility…
Here’s a photo from earlier in the day.  Merry weighed in at 7 lbs 15 ozs, Pippen weighed 8 lbs and Samwise weighed 8 lbs 10  ozs.  Quite a load for one little mama to bear, but she is doing well.

To top the day off, Petunia gave birth to a big ewe lamb.  When we say big, we mean BIG… she weighed 16 lbs 13 ozs.

We’ve fallen behind on the lamb posts, but are attempting to catch up over on Flickr Lambs of 2013.  We’re beginning to see the light at the end of the lambing season tunnel.

Moving Along

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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

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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.

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.

Lambs in the Field

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It was a busy weekend full of fence building, jug mucking, pasture walking and a whole lot of watching spring unfold before our very eyes.  We built a new paddock and moved the first four lambs and their mamas in, along with Liam.  He is kind of overwhelmed by the small, noisy creatures, but has been very patient. 

Only one new lamb so far today.  Little Miss 1307 was born about 4 a.m. out of Maibh and Aragorn and weighed 13 lbs 8 ozs.  She is a beauty.
To say the least, there is a whole lot of excitement going on!

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.