Category: Animal Husbandry
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Sheep AI Experiment, 2009, Part One
Today was the start of another sheep AI experiment. We started our 2009 trials with the USDA-NAGP people. We collected semen from 14 adult Black Welsh Mountain rams. Each ram had its picture taken in front of a size-marked tarp for future reference. While I managed to get pictures of the picture-taking process, I didn’t… Continue reading
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Lamb Scoreboard
Here you can see the 2009 lamb scoreboard, which shows all of the rams and the lambs they sired this year. Continue reading
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Lambing Is Officially Over for 2009
We have officially finished lambing for 2009. We’re now at 152 days from when we took the rams out. While we technically could have lambs up until 155 days, none of the remaining ewes look pregnant, nor do they have any udders. I’ve declared us finished. This year, we bred 56 ewes. 48 of them… Continue reading
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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