Less Work and More Work

Our 2015 lambing season has concluded with this hefty fifteen pound ewe lamb.  Isabelle is an experienced mom - she always has a single and it's always a ewe - and the lamb was scrambling up and looking for a meal in just a few minutes.



We ended with 48 lambs (from 27 ewes) of which 23 are girls and 25 are boys.  The sexes evened out toward the end - of the first ten lambs eight were rams.  I had expected many colored lambs but only got nine and of those five are boys.  We had quite a few ewes fail to conceive, also one aborted in February and another about two weeks prior to the first possible due date.  We lost one ewe to complications of pneumonia.  Despite a week of struggle on everyone's part she couldn't kick it and died leaving twin ram lambs.  Another ewe disowned one twin after a few hours which was very odd but she was adamant so there's a third bottle baby.  There are two sets of triplets and two ewes with twins who only have one teat working so several lambs are being supplemented.  Nobody risks going hungry around here.
One novel incident was a ewe with a uterine torsion.  Think of someone in a hammock that swings sideways until it flips all the way over, putting a twist in both ends. That's essentially the case here, and with everything twisted she couldn't deliver the lambs.  It happens in dairy cattle and we've seen it here in that regard but the vet said he'd never seen or even heard of it in sheep.  Oh, goody.  Every year we see some new, weird thing.  We were able to correct it by laying the ewe down, applying pressure to her abdomen to keep the uterus in place and then rolling her over - sort of rolling her around the lambs instead of trying to flip them over inside her.  Obviously we had to be super careful we were working in the proper direction!  We did it twice and it did work but the lambs had sadly expired, probably the day before.  We've been aggressive with pharmaceuticals on her and yesterday was the first day that she looked like she felt halfway decent.
So now that lambing is done I can sleep through the night again!  Woot!  All that remains is to band and tag the lambs and trim feet and deworm the ewes before turning them into mixing pens.  
In other news, we had a shearing day and got started on the fiber flock which wasn't bred to lamb this year.  Being under less physical stress really shows in the fleeces - they are all looking really nice this year.

Angel.......I think.  I don't recall exactly.

Taffy, a Border Leicester cross, with the belly wool already shorn away and set aside.

She has some gray fibers creeping into the black.

This is a really big lovely fleece and I have it earmarked to go to the FLFF fleece show and sale.
So now I have a good bit of work lined up....literally.  Thirty-eight fresh fleeces, many already reserved from the website for hand spinners and some destined for the fleece show and sale at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in - gads - a hair over two weeks.

Tomorrow's job - assembling the multi-teat nurse bucket and getting the bottle lambs familiar with it.  Feeding time has turned into a crazed free-for-all with the greedy little thugs eager lambs literally leaping over each other, pawing and butting and trying to gnaw the plastic teat out of the other lambs' mouth.  There's no such thing as teaching them manners so we need to change the scenario to work better.

The little dickens grow up so fast!

The One We've Been Looking For

Based on the date we removed the rams from the breeding groups our last possible lambing date would have been April 26.  India made us wait all the way to the afternoon of the 25th to finish our lambing season.  This tall ewe lamb weighed 15.5 lbs.   One is enough when they're that size.

The last lamb prior to that was born April 12 so she will be on a schedule all her own when it comes to vaccinations and such.  For right now she just has to concentrate on growing.

The rest of the lambs are eating nice alfalfa hay from the feeders with the adults.  Pretty soon we'll put up the creep gate so they can have their own space and eat all they want in an unhurried manner.  There is enough feeder space that no one is left out, but the ewes aren't generous and will push lambs aside with their heads to get the "best" hay.  They do need good nutrition now as they are milking their heaviest at this point.  Notice the milk froth fangs on this guy who must have just had a good snack.

Quite a few of the lambs are starting to chew a cud already.  But when they aren't playing or eating they spend a lot of time sleeping.  I like these siblings cuddling together.

Sleeping with mom.

Sleeping ON mom.

On mom but NOT sleeping.

This fella looks like he's thinking deep thoughts.

This one's thinking I've got a lot of nerve disturbing his nap.

All in all it's been a pretty good lambing.  Much better than last year, that's for sure.  Of 55 ewes in breeding groups 51 were settled. We had 85 lambs born alive.  One ewe lost twins - one fetus had expired for some reason and when it was expelled the other twin went with it and was stillborn as it was quite premature.  Another ewe had a stillborn lamb - dead several days - but the twin to it was hale and hearty so that was a nice surprise.  There are 40 ewe lambs and 45 ram lambs, so a nearly even split.  Of those 55 are white and the other 30 are black, spotted or black mottled with gray.  No losses so far.  ( I have to add that caveat to avoid a jinx.  That's the way it works.)

We have had a close call with this little tyke.

Peanut



Peanut is the smallest of a set of triplets.  She presented around April 10 with sudden lameness in her left hind leg.  Sometimes mom steps on a little footie so we didn't get too alarmed but by evening chores she was losing the ability to use her hindquarters.  Yikes.  Long story short, we're assuming either a traumatic back injury or a creeping spinal infection coming from her tail docking.  After a very bumpy 2 weeks with various drug regimens she seems to really be on the road to recovery. (Have to qualify that with "seems to" to avoid the jinx again.)  She's now a true bottle baby but she's so stinkin' cute and we're so glad she's improving that it's fine. 

We opened up a connecting alleyway and another section of pens and the lambs have a longer racecourse now.  They have a great time running - it's like waves on the beach coming in and going out.  They are starting to run out of steam toward the end.

 

Andy just finished clearing the old feed bunk of stored dirty bedding from the mid-winter barn cleaning.  We'll be opening the whole area up to the ewes with lambs soon and then there will really be some races!

And Our Last Contestant Is......

..... a hefty 16.25 lb ram lamb from Cotswold mom Gilly, born Friday morning before noon.

I wanted to get a little closer so naturally he got up and photo-bombed me.  I like the symetrical curly hair in front of his ears. 

It's been an awfully hectic few weeks - so hectic that I failed totally to blog along the way.  I have to sit down with the record sheets to cite facts and figures, but I can say it was definately a "ram year" with significantly more ram lambs than ewe lambs born.  I had no colored Cotswolds born because I used a white ram on all those ewes and his white trumped their color.  That's OK.  When I put those daughters with a future colored ram I should get lots of color. 

It was a rough year health-wise for the flock.  We lost Pearl before lambing and a Cotswold ewe named Kuddles to pneumonia.  Hazel gave me Fortune via a C-section and sadly expired once off anesthesia.  And a Cotswold named Ilsa had triplets that got tangled up with each other a few days before she likely would have delivered and it caused the death of at least one lamb which caused her to have an abnormal labor resulting in a long vet visit culminating in 3 deceased lambs and Ilsa having to be euthanized due to a perforated uterus also likely caused by the triplets becoming entangled with each other. 

We had three live sets of triplets.  One set became a trio of bottle babies when mom developed mastitis.  Another from a different set became a bottle lamb due to being so much slower and weaker than her siblings.  The third set of triplets was cause for worry because mom really didn't like lamb #2 or #3. 

For various reasons I found myself with upwards of ten lambs who were wholly or partially being bottle fed and I was only half way through lambing.  I started getting a little panicky since I know darn well that I get too attached to bottle lambs to do anything but keep them.  Happily - thankfully - the wonderful lady that runs the Wool Center at the state fair is also heavily into 4H and knew some families craving bottle lambs.  I sent her off with seven early in April with a happy heart knowing that they would have good homes.  Two of them were lambs #2 and #3 from the above-mentioned reluctant mother.  Of course I kept Fortune and the three siblings from 'mastitis mom'.  Also the small weak triplet that had become a bottle baby and one last lamb from an old ewe who was so slow to get started that she ended up in the house.... for several days..... and so ended up a bottle lamb.  Coincidentally, even in a 'ram year' the bottle lambs are all girls. 

The Gang of Six.  It must have been meant to be since they all fit on the bucket feeder :-/
That's Fortune on the far right - noticeably bigger than the others.

And here's a more flattering picture of her.

 

The others definately look to her as the ringleader big sister.

 

I used a new Cotswold ram on all the white ewes this year and I like the nice blocky lambs I'm seeing.  Many have the dark nose and tinge of dark in the ears that is fancied in the breed.

 

 

Everybody's growing quite well.

 

Annoying Mom.....

 

 

Investigating the world beyond the barn doors.....

 

 

This guy was more agreeable about having a close-up taken.

 







Enjoying the sunshine....

I like how the colored lamb is resting on his brother....kind of squishing him, actually.  But the sun is so nice he's sleepy and doesn't care.

And I'm happy that I can sleep through the nights again!

The Ones We Were Looking For

Yesterday - the very day after our expose' of the last. pregnant. ewe. - we had babies at early morning barn check.  Wooo!  Done at last with this particular waiting game.  (Don't you wish public scrutiny of non-perfoming public officials got such quick results?)

Click to biggify.  Notice the toothy grin on the ewe.

They are not the biggest lambs ever - only 7.5 lbs each - and one would have expected (stern look at the ewe) a little larger lambs from someone as big as she is, but they are behaving normally and going to come along fine.

Hey, I know you!

And of course they are fuzzy and Disney-cute so even coming last they will get their fair share of snorgling, a term coined by my friend Sara over at Punkin's Patch. 

So......lambING is over, but lamb CARE continues.  The oldest lambs are already coming due for a booster injection of BoSe to insure that they have adequate selenium levels.  We are so awfully deficient here and they are growing so fast at this stage that we've had unhappy first-hand experience to prove that they need this supplemental dose or there will be sporadic losses.  As they reach adolescence they will be eating enough mineral mix to meet their needs, but for right now there just aren't enough natural sources available to them to meet their need.

First vaccinations for older lambs are looming too, as well as putting the moms over the scale to check body condition in conjunction with eye scoring for parasite load.  We have a major barnyard fence repair project that suddenly has leapt to the front of the to-do list. Plus I still have a bajillion fleeces to skirt, a festival to get ready for, and oh yeah, the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival to attend. 

Good thing I can sleep through the night now.  Apparently, I'm going to need it.

Done!

Well, done waiting for moms to have lambs, anyway.  Ginger lambed yesterday between breakfast and lunch all by herself without fanfare or hints that It Was Time.  Sorry I doubted you, Ginger.

"I got it under control.  Chill, already."

So with the last lambs on the ground, I can put away some of the lambing kit paraphenalia, but that just means different work is coming up.  The first part of the lamb crop is almost a month old so we'll be scheduling a day to give first vaccinations and a booster of BoSe.  Andy is working on spreading the stored manure from winter clean-out, but he's been working between rain storms, and even worse, snow storms.  Enough with the snow, already.  As soon as the littlest lambs are strong enough their small mixing pen will be blended with the main flock of moms and lambs and we'll set up the creep area.  The lambs are already nibbling hay, and we always give them their own area to eat at their own pace.  They can't begin to compete with the adults, and sheep. don't. share.   Not even with their own young.

In the meantime, these cold gray days are great for napping.

Mmmmm, heated pillow

Pile o' lambs.  The 3 moorits are triplets.

The lamb in the middle is asleep with her head tipped back.  Kind of the sheep version of falling asleep sitting at the table, or upright in church.

Some friends came over to see the lambs.  Holly and BB (Bottle Boy) were in Heaven.

I like this lady. Can we keep her?  Pleeeeeeeze?

So, the season stats are as follows:

69 ewes put with rams........58 got bred.  Not a great percentage but it's my fault.  I wanted to use my oldest ram "just one more time" and gave him too many girls, so I don't hold it against any of the ewes that they didn't get bred.  Lambing period lasted 30 days - could have been better, could have dragged out another 6 days.  I prefer the lambs to be all close in age, but this isn't too bad.
99 full term lambs born, but 3 were still born and 3 were euthanized for medical reasons.  I'm not happy with the 3 euthanasias, but at least no one died due to overlooking a problem or lack of attention.
Of 93 live lambs, 42 are ewes and 51 are rams.  It's normally almost exactly 50/50, so this counts as "a ram year" and I hear a lot of other sheep people saying the same thing.  Of all the lambs, 48 are Cotswold and 45 are crossbreds.  Forty of the lambs are white and 43 are colored including 5 which are moorit.  The bulk of the white lambs are Cotswolds.  I think I'd like to keep back a nice crossbred white ram lamb to use here in the future.  Colored fleeces are fun, but so is white and a bunch of my whites are middle aged.  Just sayin'. 

Thirteen days till I leave for Maryland, so I'd best get busy.