Lambing for 2019 has finished. We bred 36 ewes and every single ewe got pregnant. This is a first for us. Usually at least 1 ewe fails to conceive.
Sadly we lost 2 ewes. One to an accident and one to pregnancy toxemia. Our lambing percentages were decent, 57 live lambs and 7 stillborns. We had 5 sets of triplets this year, and lost one entire set to the pregnancy toxemia. We do not like getting triplets. Of course the other ewe that died also had triplets and we are raising some of the others so 6 bottle babies.
Our last bottle baby lambs were in 2011. In over 20 years of raising sheep we had only had 11 bottle lambs total. This year we added 6 more to that list for a total of 17.
The lambs all look good and we’ve already started to determine who might be available for sale. We have orders for more breeding sheep than we have sheep to fill so if you want sheep from us let me know to get on our list for 2020.
Our AI class students did very well considering all the straw failures and other issues. Of the 34 ewes bred via AI 11 of them lambed producing 15 lambs, 10 rams and 5 ewes. This is a perfectly acceptable and typical percentage for this non-surgical AI. Desert Weyr Wibbly was the star of the AI siring 13 of those lambs, 8 rams and 5 ewes, including two sets of triplets. Desert Weyr Thane and Desert Weyr Sterling each sired 1 ram lamb from AI and only Desert Weyr Scotty did not settle any ewes via AI.
The live cover backup rams Desert Weyr Scotty and Desert Weyr Sterling really did their job. All the remaining ewes got pregnant. Scotty had 14 ewes to breed and sired 22 lambs, 13 rams and 9 ewes with 1 set of triplets. So in spite of the problem with the AI we know he works well. Sterling had 13 ewes and sired 20 lambs, 10 rams and 10 ewes. He sired two sets of triplets.