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Lambs
Mar 08, 2006
I'm bumping this up to the front page for another look and for new folks to see. It's lambing time again and we are down to the last 20 or so expectant moms. The pasture is full and active. We culled a lot of older ewes last fall and sold about 40 ewes to somebody who wanted to start a flock, so only had about 125 to deal with this year. It was much easier to balance the birth rate and available pens, and a bit slower on the birth rate. Of course we had our share of bad weather, losses from various reasons and other problems, but when I read last year's thread I see that we did get through this season with fewer serious problems.
Mar 09, 2006
Yesterday we sorted the remaining ewes, picked out the ones that won't be having lambs and so that only leaves about 10 to go. They will be put in the barn overnight, and with so few still expecting, and some of them not real soon, my night checks are over. Last night I got a whole night's sleep, interrupted only by my own brain thinking I should be getting up.
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Mar 06, 2005
They have started to arrive. Here is one I brought in last night about 1:30am, isn't he a sweet looking little thing? His face, ears and legs will keep their markings. Momma is a white face mixed breed, pappa is a Suffolk, black faced breed. I'm headed for the barn now to see what else is new, will take my camera.
The sheep stay out in the fields until they deliver a lamb or until we can see that they will deliver in a few minutes if the weather is bad. The barn only accommodates about 45 little families. They stay 3 days in the barn, then go out to a sheltered coral or pasture with shelter and a creep feeder. More on that later. The weather is perfect for lambing this year, some years it is still snowing and blowing. The timing of lambing works out well for this area, we try to have the lambs ready to eat a lot of grass when there is a lot of grass available. The grass dries up late in the summer so the lambs have to be sold before that.
A little new born could freeze to death in a hurry if the weather is too cold. We do lose some to conditions like that, and try to check them oftener when the weather is bad. If they get cleaned off by the ewe right away and get a drink of colostrum which is very high in fat they have a good chance of survival, but we have ways to warm a lamb quickly if the need arises. Here is a pic of what we call the warming oven. When the need arises and we need a quicker warm up than this barrel with a heat lamp, we dunk the lamb in warm water up to his neck until he is warm, then tube feed him since the really chilled ones will recover faster with a few ounces of colostrum in the tummy.
Mar 07, 2005
A newborn lamb's weight varies quite a lot according to breed, if a single, twin or triplet, or even more! Average twins in this flock probably average 8 pounds, a large single can weigh about twice that, triplets generally run about 5 pounds. That is a lot of weight a ewe is carrying when you add all the birth fluids, placenta, etc. The 150 ewes will produce about 260-270 lambs this year. The ewe numbers go up and down, and are down right now because of the drought we have been in for the past few years. Less water = less pasture and less hay for the winter. The farm raises about 95% of it's hay, grain and pasture. This farm (next door neighbors)is certified organic by Oregon Tilth which has very strict standards. Most of the meat (lamb and beef) raised there goes to organic customers, some by half or whole animals which the customer seldom sees until it is cut, wrapped and frozen. They also raise beef. We lease pasture to them so ours is certified as part of theirs.
Mar 09, 2005
The lambing season is not in full swing yet, but should be fairly soon. They seem to be getting off to a slow start. I would have to look at the barn chart to tell you how many we have already, I'll try to remember to do some counting tonight if all the pages are still on the clipboard. Yesterday and today was not very busy so the owner is busy getting a pasture set up with a creep feeder so the corral can be emptied. Things tend to get ahead of the available manpower on a farm, so this pasture set up should have been done a week or more ago. Good thing there is a corral with a couple of sheds along the edges where the lambs can get inside and out of the wind.
A creep feeder is an enclosed area that the lambs can get into but the ewes can't. If you imagine a picket fence with every second slat removed leaving spaces about 8 or 9 inches wide surrounding a lot of hay with a roof over it, you basically have a creep feeder.
Mary
Mar 10, 2005
We had a bit of a change in the weather yesterday, low pressure and some clouds so I had a busy night. First check in the pasture I found a single lamb with 2 ewes licking and talking to it. I made a guess in the dark as to which was the mom, and we all went to the barn with the lamb in the cart and 2 ewes talking to it all the way. One ewe had a pair of hooves just visible and the other what looked like a water bag. So I put the ewe who was closest to birthing in a pen with the lamb and the other ewe in the next pen, then went outside again to see what else was happening. I found another ewe with a set of nice twins and brought them inside, then looked and the first ewe had 3 lambs in a pile, too big for triplets! The ewe in the next pen had delivered but it was just afterbirth, oops, lamb number one was hers! Thankfully it was quite dry so I could tell which one it was and she was happy to get it back, licking and talking to it with those funny little ewe chuckles when I turned out the lights and came home. When I think about it now I realize there was too much blood in that membrane and I should have known the difference. All's well that ends well.
Mar 10, 2005
Here is a picture of the first pens the ewes with lambs are put into, they are about 4 by 6 feet and have enough room for a ewe to lay down and deliver another lamb without laying on one or two that she already has. We have 9 of these pens.
Mary
Mar 10, 2005
When we are sure they are finished with delivery (and we need the larger pens) we move them to these pens, we have about 18 of these.
Mar 10, 2005
They go into the mothering pens next. These are about the size of a small bedroom. After being isolated for 2 days as individual families they need a small community experience. This teaches the lambs to find their own mom in a crowd and teaches the yearling ewes not to be too concerned about other lambs getting close to theirs. We keep them here about 24 hours and from here they go out either to a corral with shelter, or to the pasture with the creep feeder.
The numbers help us find a lamb or its mother in case of illness. Red is for ewes turned out with twins, mom and babies all get the same number. Blue is for ewes with a single lamb. If the ewe gets sick for instance we need to know which lambs are hers and how many to look for.
Mary
Mar 11, 2005
Busy is the word. We are in the middle of the lamb explosion. So far since midnight there have been about 20 lambs born. I helped for about 3 hours setting up temporary pens, milking a ewe, moving ewes and lambs out to the pasture, and bringing in new arrivals. One yearling has twins but won't follow them to the barn, she finally made it as far as the corral after several tries and is standing in a quiet corner watching all the happenings. We are just leaving her alone to settle down. My night shift produced two sets of twins, it would have been three except one ewe had a very large (17 1/3 pound) lamb that was stuck with a leg backward and the head and other leg out, and I had to get the owner up at about 2:30 to help with delivering it. The other lamb was alive and is doing ok. Today 3 sets of triplets were born. Another ewe who has had a rupture for the last couple of weeks went into labor and wasn't able to push, so her lambs were pulled too, they are ok but we think she is not long for this world. You might say we have lambs coming out our ears. Tonight should be real interesting!
Here is a picture of the creep feeder. The lambs can go inside and eat any time they want, or lie down and sleep all cozy. The ewes can get their heads in but that is all. If you look closely you can see a lamb or two inside.
Mary
Mar 11, 2005
Another view looking though the creep feeder.
Mar 11, 2005
Dead farm animals are usually recycled, that means there is an out of the way area where they are put and the ravens, eagles, coyotes, and other scavengers dispose of them. I know it might sound heartless but there is no place to bury them and no time to do it. Pets are the exception usually, although I did recycle a horse that died a few years ago. The ground was frozen and there was no way to dig a hole. Farm life has some harsh realities sometimes along with the joys of things like new lambs.
Lambs that don't get matched up and "grafted" (psychologically) to a ewe with only one lamb but enough milk to feed two, are sold to a neighbor who raises them on bottles.
Mar 12, 2005
The lamb explosion continues! Tonight I brought in 4 ewes with 7 lambs and another was in labor when I left at 4:15 but will be checked at 5 or so. One lamb is a small triplet that was getting chilled so is in the warming oven. That one will need a tube feeding because although it can stand it can't walk in the straw bedding and can't navigate enough to get milk. I tried to milk a couple of ewes for colostrum, one didn't have any left and the other one wanted to make it a contact sport and I was afraid she would hurt her lambs trying to get away from me. Two granny ewes are loose in the barn, one of those being a couple of hours away from delivery.
Here is a picture from last year when we were moving a few ewes and lambs down the county road to the baby pasture. The ewes want to be right with their lambs, and the lambs want to be with their mothers, so nobody wants to go anywhere. The helper is carrying a staff with a crook for catching a lamb that might make a wrong turn or directing movements and a noise maker rattle which sometimes is needed to get them to move a few steps. Mostly what is required is several people and a lot of patience because it is a big world and scary out there! We move each mothering pen separately because they are used to being together so they move better than putting all 3 pens together with 9-12 ewes and all their lambs.
Mary
Another view.
Mary
Mar 12, 2005
I don’t get much sleep. Last night I got up at 12:30 and haven't been back to bed yet, there's just too much going on. As I expected, the night was full of lambs and problems since the lamb explosion is continuing.
The rundown: first I brought in triplets, two were normal size and doing fine, the third was teeny and chilled. She went into the warming oven and I went out to get a set of twins. On my rounds I had spotted two more, so after shuffling some ewes that already had paint brands (usually ready to leave the barn the following day or day after) to different pens so there would be somewhere to put the new arrivals I went to get the other two. Two trips because we don't want to confuse the ewes that might not want to follow if the lamb smells or sounds wrong. There was a granny that followed the cart around all night, helping! That was good because the two ewes with single lambs were nervous about following the lamb mobile and she gave them confidence. Sheep follow sheep.
Cold teensy lamb got warm and stood up, hollering "I'm hungry". I put her in with her mother and she promptly fell over and couldn't get up in the deep straw to nurse. So it was back to the warming oven to keep her from getting chilled again. I looked for some colostrum to tube feed her and there was none so I took a jar and went looking to see which ewes might have some and be cooperative. The nicest one stood still but had nothing left, her lambs had just cleaned out her supply, so I tried another one who wanted to run in circles over me and her lambs. Since the lamb appeared to be strong enough to survive a couple more hours I decided to wait until the owner got there around 6am.
Back out in the field another ewe was in the early stages of labor, standing up, turning around lying down, up and down, so it didn't look like she was going to deliver any time soon. Another quick check of the field and with nothing else happening I decided it was time to think about going home. One of the grannies in the barn was looking fairly close (maybe an hour or two) to delivering but since she was in the barn and seemed to not be in a hurry I checked out at 4:15 and came home.
Of course I was not sleepy at all, and that hungry little lamb was on my mind, so at about 6 I went back to the barn, nobody was there yet but since it was daylight I got on the 4 wheeler and checked the ewe in the pasture again. She was laying on her side not moving, and a mostly born dead lamb behind her. It took some effort to roll her up on her sternum with her feet under her, and I got almost no response because she appeared to be unusually tired. Not a good sign combined with the color of the blood, but since she couldn't get up there was nothing I could do with her.
Across the fence I could see another ewe standing over a lamb so I left the first one and made a quick trip around the field to see if another trip would be necessary. Finding no more I went to the newborn and darn! That one is also dead. Sometimes the birth sack is really tough and they can't break through it and suffocate. I brought that pair to the barn.
When the owner got there I helped him milk the last ewe that came in. He tube fed the hungry lamb, then we took all the colostrum that ewe had, put her in a stanchion pen and gave her one lamb from a set of triplets. She will have her head locked in the stanchion for a few days and not be able to tell it isn't her lamb. When we let her head loose the lamb will smell like her milk. She can stand up and lie down and that is all, no butting, no sniffing the lamb. This method is about 75% successful. The ewe in the barn finally delivered twins and I came home. That's it in a nutshell.
This photo shows the ewe with her head in the stanchion. She is fed and watered several times a day. Hopefully when she gets out she will LOVE her new baby.
Mary
Elena
Mar 12, 2005
It seems that I remember something in a movie about them skinning a dead lamb and putting the skin on an orphan so the mother of the dead lamb would accept the orphan. Was that just movie hype or did they actually do that at some time?
Mary
Mar 13, 2005
Yep, we do that skinning thing with lambs sometimes and also with calves. The hide has to be fresh enough not to turn off the prospective mother. They really don't seem to mind the blood smell as long as it is fresh. Believe it or not, some stuff in the movies is actually true, or partly true.
Last night was a bit tamer. Two ewes had lambs close together, 4 lambs and one was dead. Then I found a set of triplets all dead, no idea what happened there. She could have layed on them, or they might not have gotten out of the sacs and up on their feet to nurse, she might not have wanted to stand still long enough for the lambs to nurse, might not have any milk, etc. It is hard to say but sure is a disappointment and money lost at the end of the season. I didn't bring them in, no point in dirtying a pen. She might not be a good candidate for a surrogate mother so probably will be sold.
I got some pictures of the bottle baby (teensy lamb) when I had her out of the barrel to feed her last night. She is so small we felt she would do better in the barrel with a heat lamb than in the bummer lamb pen with more air circulating on a very windy night with about 25 degrees outside and about 30 in the barn. What a cute little thing she is. I would be surprised if she weighs 4 pounds. The pictures are still in the camera, so I will post some of her later. Yesterday when I was down at the barn in the late afternoon there was a little girl visiting there and she was carrying that lamb around wrapped in a blanket. Very cute.
Mary
Mar 14, 2005
And here she is. She looks pink because of the infrared lamp above her.
When she got warm she stood up.
Mary
Mar 14, 2005
She is about 24 hours old in this picture. Look at her size compared to the broom standing about a foot behind her.
Mary
Mar 16, 2005
Today we moved about 30 ewes and their lambs to the pasture from the corral in one group. It was quite the parade. Last night I brought in a set of twins, followed by a granny. She was in the early stages of labor so she got to stay in the barn along with a yearling who was showing mucous and talking a lot, but who had picked a poor place next to the pond to deliver. To get the yearling I had to bring about half the drop band (those who still have to drop their lambs) into the barn and do some fancy body English (sheepish?) to get the yearling isolated and the other 30 or so back outside. She had a single lamb by the time the next person got there to check them this morning. We have another itty bitty lamb in the warming barrel, smaller than the one we had a few days ago. He is a twin but sure came up short. His pipeline must have had a clog or a kink in it. With only about 55 ewes to go things will be winding down soon, but on the other hand there is a weather front coming in so that could produce an activity burst again.
The drop band is fed about mid afternoon to have most of the births during daylight hours. Sometimes it works very well, other nights I wonder.......
Mar 17, 2005
The theory on the timing of feeding is this: They fill up and bed down near the chow line to chew their cuds, get up a time or two during the night to eat a bit more of the leftovers or get a drink, and do not move around much like they would if they were hungry. Toward morning they get hungry again, move around more to glean the leavings of hay or find some grass to nibble and this encourages any ewe who is in the early stages of labor to have more contractions, similar to when I walked the halls of the hospital to get my labor to speed up. If they are fed early in the day they move around too much at night and so more births come at night when it is less convenient for us to watch and care for them. We record the approximate time of birth (1am, 3pm, etc) and our records show this pretty much reverses what would normally happen.
Our weather is cold and windy again. Tonight when I went out with the lamb mobile I saw a ewe with a standing lamb in the shelter of a shed out of the wind, then spotted one out in the open, also with a standing lamb. Standing lambs are warmer than those laying on the ground. They get to their feet within a few minutes of being born and need to nurse right away which makes they generate some heat. Sometimes a nervous mother won't stand still for her lambs to nurse, sometimes another one is coming right away so she will lie down again and then Jr doesn't get a drink and chills quickly on a cold night. When they chill they can't get up again so I knew it was ok. I made a quick check of the rest of the flock to be sure nobody was in any serious trouble, then picked up the one in the wind and took it to the barn, made a second trip to get the one by the shed. Each ewe had another lamb after they came inside, so both have nice sets of twins.
Another fun activity was feeding the little bitty lamb who is still in the barrel under the heat lamp. He drinks from a bottle now but couldn't stand up without help. Without the heat lamb he would chill again because he is so tiny he can't generate enough heat to stay warm. The barn is a quite airy place with open places missing windows, cracks between boards, etc. This is good because ammonia from the pens does not build up and we don't have many cases of pneumonia. Most of the newborns do just fine with straw bedding and momma's milk, but they have the advantage of a warm mother to snuggle up against, and a meal any time they want it. This little guy will get plenty of TLC over the next few days and seems to have passed his first crisis, but now may be getting pneumonia, he sounds rattley when he breathes. I made a note of that but the next person who feeds him will probably hear it if it was anything other than some milk getting down the wrong pipe.
I took more pictures while waiting for the ewes to deliver their second lambs but haven't downloaded them, so be patient, they will be coming soon. Right now, yawn, I'm going back to bed.
Mary
Mar 17, 2005
This is the barn. It has been there a long time and you can see that it is very well ventilated. The section nearest the road has a lot of small pens, another section like it over on the right side out of sight has the mothering pens where we put 3 or 4 ewes with their lambs for a day before turning them out into the corral or pasture. We bring the sheep inside from the pasture through the corrals in the back. More corrals and sheds are to the left of the picture. I was standing across the county road when I took this.
Mary
Mar 18, 2005
Good morning. It was kind of a long night. Production has not slowed down yet. When I got to the barn there was a ewe inside who was in early labor and one outside who had her water bag out already. Since it is easier to move a ewe with a lamb than one without one I waited in the barn, watching the first one. The pens are mostly full and I needed a place to put one so I repaired a fence panel that some anxious ewe had gone over and broken. Bailing wire to the rescue again! It is what holds these old farms together.
When I out to pick up the ewe and lamb I found that she had twins, one on it's feet and one dead in the birth sack. She is in one of those stanchion pens to try a graft with a triplet that has been waiting for a surrogate mother. Whenever possible we try to get every ewe to raise 2 lambs except the yearlings who are still growing and don't have enough milk for 2.
The ewe in the barn in labor concerned me but I left her and came home after watching her awhile longer, didn't sleep well thinking maybe she was in trouble, so after daylight I went back to look, she'd had twins. Maybe she was just waiting for me to leave.
We had an event of some kind here on our road this morning, don't know what happened yet. I saw the ambulance go by with lights flashing. That is very rare, there are only 4 houses past ours on the road, so the first thing I thought of was that my bosses elderly mother-in-law might have had a problem. The owner and his daughter showed up soon after, everything was ok with the mother-in-law, so now we are all thankful for that but still wondering.
The new arrivals in the field were brought to the barn along with a ewe about to deliver who followed us. We shuffled some ewes that we knew were through lambing to the smaller pens in the front of the barn to give the new ones a large enough pen to lie down and have another lamb. It's hard to tell if they are really done until the afterbirth appears.
Yesterday I took this picture of the back side of the barn so you can see the corrals and the lean to on the left where there are more pens inside. This shot was taken from the pasture so I guess you get a sheep's eye view.
Mary
Mar 22, 2005
It's been a few days without lamb news, so here goes. Things have slowed down quite a bit. We are down to about 30 ewes left to lamb. Last night there was a set of twins at my 1am check but nothing tonight. Only 3 ewes lambed during the past 24 hours.
There is a one week old lamb in the warming barrel who needed tube feeding tonight, I don't think the little guy is going to make it. He is one who has been out in the pasture and must have missed a couple of meals, got chilled and was brought in for a warm up and treatment. He is very lethargic, won't suck on a bottle and has labored breathing and maybe pneumonia. I'll be surprised if he makes it through the night. This year has been strange weather wise, warmer than normal which is less stress on the little ones, but we have still lost quite a few from various causes. Last night it rained and hailed and that must have chilled this little guy. His momma has another lamb and I hope she takes good care of it. The lambs have started running around in groups so it is easy for them to get quite a ways from their mothers, then suddenly they are tired and realize they have no idea where mom is in this big world of their pasture. They tend to stand in one place and maaaaaaaaaaa and expect mom to come find them. Often the ewe just stands in one place and answers instead of going to look for her baby. Sometimes they don't reconnect in a timely manner and then the lamb misses a meal, not too serious if it only happens to miss one meal, but when a cold front moves though at the same time that can change things in a hurry.
Pictures to come soon, they aren't downloaded yet and I need to get some sleep. We have company and so time online has not been easy to come by.
Mar 23, 2005
Another quiet night on the lamb watch. It's a rainy night but when I was out checking it was not raining as hard as it seemed to be after I got back inside the barn, but then that could have just been the noise from the tin roof. Lots of tin roof on that big ole barn. Despite the holes we can see when inside looking up there are very few leaks. The tin was on a different roof before it was put on that barn, so there are rows of holes. Why it doesn't leak like a sieve is a mystery to me when our shop roof leaks despite the black tarry goop we use to patch the holes.
The lamb I fed last night died, but I had a different one to feed tonight, a twin that got chilled at birth sometime yesterday. This one was under a heat lamp when I went to the barn about 4pm but was still with it's mother and sibling. No heat lamp tonight but my "do" list said to bottle feed it which was easy enough to do because this lamb has a strong sucking reflex even though it doesn't seem to have the energy to stand up and find dinner at mom's diner. It was warm tonight without a heat lamp so will be ok. The strange thing with lambs is that the ones chilled at birth usually live with a warm up and feeding, but if they get chilled a few days later it is hard to save them. Another thing that is hard to figure out. Life is just full of mysteries.
Mar 24, 2005
Our weather is cold and windy so I was very glad not to find any new lambs in the field tonight. Two lambs that were born earlier got cold, one is still under a heat lamp after being warmed in water and then tube fed. That one is getting around ok and seems to know where to find dinner, it wouldn't suck from a bottle. That could have been because he wasn't hungry or because his mother was having a fit with me handling her lamb, she wanted to butt me and I had to take the lamb out of her pen to try to feed it. She was quite happy to get it back. Another lamb is a bit slow in the learning department and belongs to a nervous yearling who is doing a pretty good mothering job, standing quite still while her baby looks for the nipples. I bottle fed that one, he only drank about 2 oz but that is enough for now and maybe he will find his dinner before he needs to be fed again.
Mary
Mar 25, 2005
Last night was a quick check and come home, no new lambs, no ewes in obvious labor, no bottle babies to feed. Our weather is still cold, about 25 at night and about 40-45 in the daytime, but the wind is what makes it feel about 15 degrees colder. Only 2 ewes lambed yesterday, one of them is a ewe lamb (1 yr old) who had a very large lamb. She has the sweetest face and is such a good mommy. When I looked at her last night she looked at me and then looked down at her lamb as if to say "this is mine!"
This picture is the one I have been hoping to get. The lambs have so much energy and they love to climb on their mothers when nobody else wants to play. The ewe just laid there chewing her cud while her lamb climbed up, pawed at her head and jumped down. My camera has a 5 second delay so wouldn't take the second picture. And of course when the camera was ready the lamb was through playing. I've missed more good pictures that way, but am glad to have this one.
Mary
Mar 27, 2005
The barn is almost empty. There’s just one ewe is in there with twins that were born yesterday. The others have all been moved to the pasture across the road. When I checked the flock they were all bedded down. I putt-putted around them on the 4 wheeler and they all got up and walked around a bit. The wind is not as cold as last night with just a few sprinkles of rain coming down but still I was glad to get back into the barn, write a quick note and come home to a warm house and a hot cup of mint tea. There are 23 ewes left out in the flock and some of them probably are not pregnant but they are so wooly it is hard to tell. The chances of finding new lambs gets slimmer as the numbers go down, so I probably won't be bringing in many more lambs or doing this night check too many more nights. I'm ready for a whole night's sleep. The full moon didn't have any effect on the birth rate, so I am guessing some of those ewes got bred on the next cycles. Sometimes the stragglers finish up in mid to late April but I don't know how many stragglers will be kept this year, feed could be short because of the drought. Also, the lambs are easier to market if they are all about the same size at the same time. It helps to synchronize things on a farm so that the animals require the same feed and care at the same time, so too many late (and therefore smaller) lambs have to be left with their mothers and this would require separate handling if it goes too long.
The last few minutes have been spent next to the back door looking out the window with the porch light on to see what new cat has shown up here to eat. We usually get one every winter. He looks just like our big Newt cat only smaller, a gray and black tabby. Newt was scrunched down growling and neither of them wanted to fight although they were just 2 ft from each other. My orange kitty was inside standing by my feet growling and when he heard her he make a slow and careful 180 turn and disappeared into the flower bed. He (probably a he, the strays usually are) can stay as long as he is not a trouble maker. I think he is the same cat I saw about a month ago at the neighbors but he wasn't theirs either. Maybe he likes our cat food flavor better.
Mar 29, 2005
Tonight's check found a yearling ewe with a partly born lamb. She was quite nervous but went into the corral and followed the cow funnel chute into the head catch where I trapped her, reached in to pull the lamb's feet out and get it delivered, but sadly the lamb was not alive. Momma is ok. I put her in the barn with it so the owner can tell which ewe she is. Another yearling delivered a lamb which was almost dry when I found him. She didn't want to follow me to the barn so I had to bring the flock in. The ewe finally went to the pen where her lamb was waiting and talking (that helps) and I got the gate up and turned the others back out to the corral and eventually back to the pasture. I keep the corral gate shut when I am sorting sheep in the barn because if the wrong one gets past me it is easier to put them back in if I don't have to start from square 1 (the pasture).
The 4 wheeler with the lamb cart was uncooperative tonight so I got a bit of exercise checking the flock and bringing in the live lamb. We have plastic lamb carriers that go under the lamb's chest and he can be carried like a little suitcase with his legs dangling. The ewe went back to the flock when I approached her lamb, then the whole flock went toward the barn so I followed them, laid the lamb down near the gate to the corral, stepped away about 50 feet and waited for the ewe to come to it. The rest of the flock went through the corral into the barn (open door and lights on, they know there is good alfalfa hay in there) and when I approached the lamb again she followed them. I put the lamb in a pen and waited for the ewe to go to it. The lamb talked a lot and she kept going to it but every time I tried to get the gate she would leave again. Finally I just got lucky. She is very nervous and tried to jump out. Sheep are panicky things.
It's time to sleep. Most of you are awake and starting your day now but it is 4:40am here.
Mar 29, 2005
I'll be checking them for the next few nights since things are still happening and the weather is bad. This afternoon has been one snow squall after another. Maybe I can get another good picture or two, but it isn't the end really since they will be around for the next few months sometimes pastured in the field next to us and sometimes on our place. They go through a really cute stage at about 2 months old when I just want to catch and hug 'em all.
Mar 31, 2005
Good morning. Yesterday we sorted out the ewes that either don't look pregnant or will be very late lambing, so now the drop band is down to 14. I got a few pictures of the unusual colored brown lambs before we moved them to the pasture. They are twins and both female so they might be kept as replacements, we'll have to see how they grow.
Mary
Mar 31, 2005
Here they are on their way to the pasture. They don't exactly go in a straight line, all concerned about where their lambs are so it takes a lot of zigzagging to get to the gate. They have a tendency to try to go back to the barn where they have just spent 3 days with their lambs. We are just outside the barn door at this point and need to go to the trees on the right. Good thing our road is not very busy. The trip should take about 1 minute if they just walked, but with all the confusion it takes about 4 or 5 sometimes.
Mar 31, 2005
When we arrive at the pasture gate one little lamb discovers that the grass (a new thing that smells good) is also good to nibble. The building in the background is an old homestead house that is now used for storage and also makes a great windbreak. The creep feeder is beyond that and hay was waiting.
Mary
Apr 04, 2005
My night checks are over and endurance competition season has started, I will start a new thread for that. When I came past the baby pasture yesterday on my way home there were 3 more ewes with lambs in it. The older lambs are in a larger adjoining pasture and several little groups of them were running and jumping. Those little guys enjoy playing king of the mountain on the molehills and I saw one lamb standing on it's mother who was peacefully laying there chewing her cud.
Apr 04, 2005
Today I'm on lamb watch again. One ewe has been acting like she might go into labor but so far she hasn't. Ok, so how do I know? Well, she isolates herself from the flock and stands there making lamb talk, then the next time I look she is back with the bunch, no mucous or water bag, but a couple of hours later there she is alone and talking again. probably just a case of really slow early labor. She looks like there could be twins in there but they fool us all the time. The main flock of ewes with lambs has been moved into a large pasture next to us but they are too spread out to get a good picture. They are staying on the sheltered side of a hill because we have a pretty cold windy day with frequent snow squalls. The lambs have never seen so much space, their little world is getting bigger and bigger. Maaaaaaaa, where are you mom?
Mary
Apr 07, 2005
The ewe I mentioned above had triplets. One was very tiny and weak and was given to the neighbor who buys the bummer lambs. Oh, and what is a bummer? Basically it is an orphan lamb or one whose mother cannot feed it. If left with the flock they become panhandlers, bumming a sip of milk here and a sip there before being chased away by a ewe who thought she was feeding her own lamb until she sniffed it. Then the lamb goes to steal from another ewe, sometimes coming up behind them to grab a nipple and get a little milk before the ewe can react. Triplet lambs that can't be grafted to another ewe become bummers and go to the neighbor who feeds them milk until they can live on hay or grass. A ewe can usually feed two lambs but don't have enough milk for 3. If we leave the 3rd lamb with the ewe all of them come up short. A ewe will call her lambs who come running and plug in on both sides of her. A third one would get nothing, and then maybe the next time would not be strong enough to compete with the others, gradually getting weaker if he didn't become a very adept little thief.
Mary
I'm refreshing this narrative again becasue I didn't start a new thread for lambing this year and while the details change, it is pretty much the same from year to year. I'm sorry to see that the pictures have disappeared. The 2007 season is almost finished now, down to about 20 ewes, and my lamb tales are included with other daily topics in more of a catch all forum called Hi, I'm Mary. I hope you didn't miss the action.
