Category: Animal Husbandry
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Lambing Is Nearly Done – We Hope!
Well, we’re near the end of lambing now. We’re at 144 days from rams out, and we have about 15 ewes looking ready to pop at any time. Here I am checking Cerridwyn for the proper positioning of her first lamb. She had an ewe. Much later, she had a breech stillborn. She never showed… Continue reading
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Jump Starting a Lamb
Lambing is in full swing, and I thought I’d share a trick we now use on all lambs. I milk a bit of colostrum into a syringe case. Ken uses his finger to entice the lamb to nurse, then he squirts the milk into the size of the lamb’s mouth. This does several things: it… Continue reading
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Cute Lambs
This pair of twins discovered how much fun it is to sit on the high rocks above the other sheep and survey the pasture. Continue reading
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Lamb Races
Yesterday, I finally managed to film some lamb races. The early lambs are all growing very well. The morning and evening lamb races are a daily occurrence. When they’re done, there is a lot of baa-ing as the ewes try to find their babies and the lambs try to remember where their moms are. They… Continue reading
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The Babysitter
This ewe was recruited to watch over the lambs while their moms went out to graze. Just after I took this picture, they all took off doing lamb races. She was racing after them, trying to keep them all together. I can just see her trying to explain to the rest of the ewes why… Continue reading
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Beach Ball’s lambs
Here you can see Tanwen’s two lambs. I tag twins in the left ear and singles in the right ear. That way, if I see a lost lamb, I can easily tell whether I should be looking for another one or just for the ewe. Ewes that lose their lambs often get marked down, and… Continue reading
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The Rams Are Together, and Beach Ball Has Lambed
Today, we got all of the lambs into one big group. It’s a lot easier to manage a bunch of rams instead of several small groups. The first step is to cram everybody into a tiny space with almost no room to run. This also gets them all smelling like each other and reduces fights… Continue reading
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First Lambs!
Here are the first lambs of the season! Bron had a nice ram lamb weighing nine pounds. It was out, dry, and nursed when we got there this morning. Belinda had a pair of twin ram lambs weighing 7 pounds 14 ounces and 7 pounds 13 ounces, respectively. One had a leg back but was… Continue reading
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Woolly Beach Balls and a Garden Attempt
We still don’t have any lambs, but as you can see, we do have some very round sheep. This is Desert Weyr Tanwen. She had twins her first year, but only a single last year. I suspect she’s carrying twins again this year due to her size. I have a very black thumb, but I… Continue reading
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On Pasture With Big Bales of Hay
Today, we got the pregnant ewes out into pastures where they can lamb. The grass is still not very high, so we put out some hay. We got three round bales to try. They’re smaller than some – only four feet wide and 1,000 pounds each. Ken can move them with the tractor without a… Continue reading