Finally, a full nights sleep. all our girls are done lambing and have happy families to raise. We ended up with 10 babies all alive and doing super. I have pics of the last ones, but still getting them ready. Will get them up later today. In this group, “black sheep” of the family is the norm. Out of the 10, we have 3 white ones. 4 little girls, and 6 boys. We have a tentitive agreement for sale of the boys when they are weaned, and we will keep the girls to add to our flock.
I also have some pics of our sand storm yesterday and today. Just waiting for the wind to die down so I can get some pics of what it should look like without the sand blowing. It has been brutal here in the last 2 days. Warm, but brutal.
Cindy
April 15th, 2008
Posted by
Cindy |
Musings |
no comments
Here are a couple pics of the 3rd ewe and her newborns, not even cleaned up yet.
The 4th picture is of the first 4 babies. Still have 2 ewes to lamb yet.
Enjoy
Cindy
April 8th, 2008
Posted by
Cindy |
Musings |
one comment
Finally, after 2 years of looking at someone else’s baby lambs, we now have our own we can look at and enjoy. It didn’t exactly go off without a hitch, but we have at this moment 3 babies to enjoy.
The very first one was born blind. It couldn’t get up and after a couple hours we intervened. I went in the pen and picked it up and took in the house to warm it up and get some warmed colostrum in it’s little tummy. It was really puny looking but just thought it may have been weak. We also noticed it’s eyes were white, like there was a film over them. We are pretty sure it was blind. Well, we prepared to make it a bottle baby at least till it could stand up on its own. It was about 6 hours old when it died. Evidently it just wasn’t meant to be.
Below are a couple pictures of the rest of the wee ones. She had 4 total.
The first picture is the gal that lost all her lambs. She was just exhausted. The little one is the bummer we got from neighbor to replace her lost ones. The second picture is after she recovered and has accepted the bummer as her own. Momma and bummer both doing well.
The third picture is our second ewe that had 4 and lost the first one. These guys are so new she hasn’t even got them all cleaned up yet. Cleaning them up is part of the bonding process. The smell of them is how they keep track of them in the herd. Also during this bonding time she is growling low and softly to them so they learn her “voice” from the herd. And the last picture I am checking out the little white one. It kept trying to get up and always fell down. In checking him out, I found the umbilical cord around a hind leg that was keeping him from getting up. After removing it from around the leg, he popped right up and started nursing.
We weighed all the lambs, and they ranged from 5-8 1/2 lbs.
We still have 3 that have to lamb yet. Will get some more pics when the bundles arrive
Cindy
April 5th, 2008
Posted by
Cindy |
Musings |
no comments
Been too long between posts, and I’m sorry. Things have been pretty quiet here.
Spring things are starting to spring up, tulips, strawberry plants, raspberries, rhubarb, and all that is starting to pop up and get green.
We have 4 Ewes that are due to lamb this week.
One of our yearlings had 3 that were stillborn yesterday (Monday the 31st) We felt very badly about that, especially since we pulled lamb watch all night in the truck. We noticed something wasn’t right about 4am, but by then it was too late.
Pedro, from the lamb farm around the corner came down and gave us a hand and brought a little 2 hr old lamb that was one of a set of quads. We penned up baby and momma for the bonding process since it wasn’t hers and she knew it. She totally ignored it, that’s why they got penned up, like a forced bonding. She and the baby are doing fine as of this morning and will stay there today and tomorrow just to make sure she has accepted it.
Next posting hopefully will have better news about newborn lambs.
Cindy
April 1st, 2008
Posted by
Cindy |
Musings |
no comments
