LambMetrics is our lambing blog which tells some of the tales of farm life at lambing time.
Also contains pretty lamb pictures– and maybe a few confronting ones too.
#lambspam
English Leicester
LambMetrics – 6th September 2022
LambMetrics is our lambing blog which tells some of the tales of farm life at lambing time.
Also contains pretty lamb pictures – and maybe a few confronting ones too.
#LAMBMETRICS for the day
Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks (incl. Black flock)
Born today: 2
Total Lambs Born: 96
Drysdale lambs (live total):
Drysdale X lambs (live total):
English Leicester lambs (live total):
English Leicester X lambs (live total):
Total Sets of Twins born: 22
Total Sets of Triplets born: 2
Total ewe lambs: 60
Total ram lambs: 36
Ewes lambed /86: 71 (82.5 %)
Lamb % : 132.4 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 5
Losses: 2 [lamb]; 1 [ewe]
Castledale & Merino Flocks
Born today:
Total Lambs Born: 116
MerinoX lambs (live total): 25
Castledale lambs (live total): 72
Total Sets of Twins born: 28
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Ewes lambed /98: 73 (74.5 %)
Lamb % : 154.7% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 7
Losses: 3 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]
NOTABLE MIDWIFERY TALES:
Another lovely day for the lambs today.
Have managed to get some figures crunched, finally. Not finalised at this point but I did break out a spreadsheet to try and wrest control of the Merino/Castledale figures.
Interestingly, the Merino & Castledale ewes lambing in the last few days are much calmer than the first batch. They must be getting the idea…. At this rate I may even stay on top of the numbers rather than playing catch-up all the time.
One startling stat this year is the number of ewe lambs. Normally I’d expect 50/50 or towards 60/40 but it’s actually trending better than the 60/40 in the English Leicester/Drysdale mob and close to 60/40 in the Merino/Castledale. ‘Tis the season as they say…
Okay, so much has been happening. Am forgetting what I did yesterday. LOL But I do know there are lambs everywhere…!
Had a young, pregant English Leicester ewe from the stud flock drop dead yesterday evening. Not exactly sure why and my rudimentary post-mortem didn’t show any super obvious reason. Certainly not lambing related per se. Not ruling out a rupture of something?? Don’t know.
The lambs have been doing very well this year but I noticed one young Drysdale lamb poorly yesterday afternoon. So she and her mum were housed overnight and the lamb treated with antibiotics. Wasn’t sure if I had caught it in time (things can go downhill very fast with lambs) but so far so good and she was looking improved and drinking off her mum today. Fingers crossed.
LambMetrics – 5th September 2022
LambMetrics is our lambing blog which tells some of the tales of farm life at lambing time.
Also contains pretty lamb pictures– and maybe a few confronting ones too.
Glorious sunshine, a few more lambs and the odd hiccup.
Yesterday we gained another lamb for the Bottle Gang. Which makes 4 – better than last year.
Am nearly totally up to date with the stats but they keep popping out more! And I normally can’t tag the Merino and Castledale lambs immediately like the Drysdales and English Leicesters so they end up a day behind. Shepherdess problems … LOL
Had some other work that needed doing today but all going well tomorrow we will have a stats update. So far there are nearly 100 lambs in the English Leicester/Drysdale group and nearly 100 in the Merino/Castledale group. I have a sneaking suspicion I ordered the wrong number of tags and will run out … ooops.
LambMetrics – 2nd September 2022
LambMetrics is our lambing blog which tells some of the tales of farm life at lambing time.
Also contains pretty lamb pictures – and maybe a few confronting ones too.
Beautiful sunshine today. Cold wind though.
Managed to get through my backlog of tagging lambs. Still have to put it all on paper/computer to add up but hopefully there will be stats tomorrow night. Which will be good since there are only about 40 ewes left to lamb?!
First thing this morning though – TRIPLETS! 🙂
Dear Mona had these lovely little lambs (definitely not as big as Hermione’s!) which was 2 black lambs and 1 white. Mona’s mother, Mopsy, is a black/silver so it’s good to carry on the coloured English Leicester genes. 🙂
Mona is 4 years old this year and I was going to link to a blog post about her birth – since her mum was not well and so Mona was hand-raised – but I discovered I didn’t do LambMetrics in 2018… oops. oh well, here’s a baby pic of Mona and her sister instead!
Despite the sunny weather and lots of lambs I basically forgot to take photos. Ooops. That’s the trouble when running about after them all and trying to make sure all the twins are together and being recorded correctly.
LambMetrics – 1st September 2022
LambMetrics is our lambing blog which tells some of the tales of farm life at lambing time.
Also contains pretty lamb pictures – and maybe a few confronting ones too.
A huge day today due to shifting the Singles mob. I haven’t been able to “drift off” the new lambs like I can do with the Twins group so it was time for a catch up on the tags and numbers. It gets harder and harder to really tell which ones may have issues when there are a lot of mixed age lambs in one mob. And nothing like impetus of “get a new bale of hay or change paddocks” to get things done.
The lamb backlog will be finished tomorrow but they aren’t helping – at least 4 sets of twins born this afternoon while I was in town for an appointment and then they were all starting to get mixed up so it was time for a change in that paddock too. Lambs everywhere.
The remaining pregnant ewes (approx 25% of the original number) are all together now and they will get their lovely big bale of hay tomorrow. Hopefully I can get back to the daily drift and keep on top of the numbers then!
One Drysdale ewe assisted this morning. Unfortunately, her ram lamb was trying to exit with back feet first and it wasn’t successful. She’s okay but the lamb was lost.
Polly – former pet lamb – delivered her twins today and she is a bit of a dill so she’s now in the garden with Hermione to try and stop her letting her lambs get stolen/mixed up/forgotten.
Time to go feed some lambs again so here’s a little gallery of today’s pics. (I really need to delete some off the phone before I run out of memory!)
LambMetrics – 29th August 2022
LambMetrics is our lambing blog which tells some of the tales of farm life at lambing time.
Also contains pretty lamb pictures – and maybe a few confronting ones too.
A bit of rain overnight – just enough to keep things squelching – and I was hoping for another quiet day in the lambing zone. Especially since I have 2 fingers taped together. LOL
The scene this morning involved a Drysdale ewe – who had scanned for a single pregnancy.
“She’s had two! The scanner was wrong!”
and then
“Things that make you go hmmmmmmm”
Wait a minute, one of these is not like the other….
I pull the drinking lamb away and discover it’s from a set of twins I pulled from a merino ewe (the ones where they were both trying to exit at the same time).
Oh no, the ewe has happily accepted him and she wasn’t as excited about her actual lamb.
So into the pen for her to get the thief away from her. Unfortunately, I suspect he had thieved nearly all the colostrum. Her lamb has been supplemented just in case. He was a bit daft too so that had to be sorted out.
Remember the English Leicester lamb that we grafted onto a Castledale ewe that had lost her lamb due to her teats being too large? Well, she accepted him for sure but we’ve still been having to restrain her to let the lamb drink. I had a big talk to her today – reminding her that it would be more comfortable for everyone if she let the lamb drink little and often. I then put a collar on her in anticipation of needing something to hold. Let them out after bub had had his drink. Fifteen minutes later I see…..
Winner! 😀
Lots of single lambs being born at the moment. Will try catch up on them tomorrow if the weather is good enough. Only one set of twins born today.
Will finish on a sight this afternoon that makes me smile.
