Lambing has been dragging on. I bought a 4-5 month old ram lamb, a cross between a texel and cheviot?, and put him in with my ewes in mid-august. Don't think he was quite ready to breed yet, because no lambs came until about mid-February, right when I went to Florida :-)
I had some management skills this year and only bred my adult and 2 year old ewes. They've been lambing fairly easily with mainly twins and mainly ewe lambs, what a good boy :-)
I also bought Elvis, a cross between a scotty and a texel, he was so darn cute even tho he had horns, that I couldn't resist him too. So I called my friend Karen on the way back with him to see if she didn't want him to breed her 2 ewes and my 3 ewes that were at her place, luckily she said yes, and Elvis got dropped at her place. Photo courtsey of Karen Karkow.
I told Karen to bring her 2 ewes and my 3 ewes over to my place to lamb, so over they came. Luckily I was there when her 2 lambed, as both needed lambs pulled. Her first ewe had a single ewe lamb and the second had twin ewe lambs. None appear to have horns. Karen was very happy to have 3 new ewe lambs to add to her flock.
Suzy has been wonderful! She watched the farm while I went to Florida. Hey, at least I didn't leave the country this time :-) And she kept one of my young dogs. She even put out a large bale of hay when it was icy and snowy, managed not to get the tractor stuck or tip it over. She let me know AFTER she put it out, as she knew I would worry about it from sunny Florida.
Suzy continues to check the farm every morning and sometimes in the evening. The sheep like her enough, so they let her find them with thier newborn lambs, so she can jug them up, or as yesterday, dry off thier lamb for them too.
We have a few more first timers to lamb. These are always the most worrisome, often with single lambs that might be too large to lamb easily, or new moms that aren't sure what to do with that wet thing that just popped out thier backend.
Will be glad when everyone is finished. My plan is to keep these ewe lambs and not sell them, as I need replacement ewes this year.
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I feel your discomfort with lambing this year. I am having the same worries as NOT one of my maiden yearlings has lambed yet. I'll be going in for surgery in two weeks and will be unable to do much for six weeks after. Of course that damned Murphy's Law, I surely would have bred later if I knew in the fall I'd be getting major surgery in spring....arggg.
ReplyDeleteMichele,sorry to hear you have to have surgery, will you be done lambing by then?
ReplyDeleteSuzy reports 2 first timers had thier lambs, set of twin ewe lambs and a single ewe lamb. I'm thinking I only have 3-4 more to go. Jilly is due to have her pups today or tomorrow, temp is down, more anxiety. Do you have any ewes around a year old or so for sale, I have a friend looking for some.
I had the same thing happen with my ram lamb- no lambs yet. I had my older ram with them later on as back up, so the ewes are getting close.
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