Getting Better

The weather has improved somewhat.  This is yesterday.

Rainbow's end......the sheep barn!

Today we are at 34 degrees and seeing spitting snow....again.  Sunday, Monday and Tuesday are predicted to be warmer so we're planning sheep work for those days.  If I'm working bare handed with needles and syringes it's helpful to be able to feel them..........



I've gone through the lambing records and tallied up some results.

We had 148 lambs from 76 ewes, so a 195% birth rate.  Of all ewes exposed to rams, four either did not conceive or resorbed the pregnancy early on, and a fifth (Wabbit) suffered an abortion possibly due to being manipulated during shearing or just misfortune.  We had no losses at birth, but have since lost two ewe lambs - one euthansia due to a crippling condition, either spinal trauma or advancing congenital stenosis, and the twisted intestine from this past Monday.  We had 71 ram lambs and 77 ewe lambs, so a fairly even split.  We had 77 white lambs and 71 colored lambs.

Some lambs are already distinguishing themselves with fast growth and everyone will get a real boost when we are able to turn them onto pasture - whenever that will be.  By weaning time we'll have a pretty good handle on which lambs are candidates for breeding stock sales or replacement stock for here.

In the meantime...back to the skirting table!