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English Leicester

LambMetrics – Drysdale & English Leicester lambing, Aug 22nd

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#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 6
Total Lambs Born: 52
Drysdale lambs (live total): 33
DrysdaleX lambs (total): 15
English Leicester lambs (live total): 2
Total Sets of Twins born: 14
Total Sets of Triplets born: 1
Total ewe lambs: 23
Total ram lambs: 29
Ewes lambed /72: 35 (48.6 %)
Lamb % : 143% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 3
Losses: 1 ewe, 2 lambs (stillborn)

Notable Midwifery tales:

Today was the that young Hermione finally lambed. Hermione has an interesting parentage: her sire is an English Leicester and her dam is a Drysdale. This year she was put to the English Leicester ram.
Hermione’s mother (commonly called the Kimmy or “Her Imperial Highness”) has a well-documented history of “lamb thieving”. (In the end she had to be mated so she lambed first… it saved fights….!) These things appear to have some heritability – today Hermione had her own try at such behaviour. 😕 

Only her first lambing season but she tried to take someone else’s lamb as she had hers.
This actually occurs more commonly than a lot of farmers realise – some ewes look after the stolen lamb fine, others will abandon it when they have their own. This accounts for some of the neonatal deaths when there are quite a few twins. (More common with twins because the birth mother gets distracted while having #2)

Hermione and her lamb

LambMetrics – Drysdale & English Leicester lambing, Aug 20th

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#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 3
Total Lambs Born: 46
Drysdale lambs (live total): 30
DrysdaleX lambs (total): 12
English Leicester lambs (live total): 2
Total Sets of Twins born: 12
Total Sets of Triplets born: 1
Total ewe lambs: 20
Total ram lambs: 26
Ewes lambed /72: 31 (43 %)
Lamb % : 142% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 3
Losses: 1 ewe, 2 lambs (stillborn)

Notable Midwifery tales:

A little quieter today. Just the one maiden ewe lambing as well as Gilbert’s older sister, Minty. All easy and no worries. 🙂

Pic today is of a set of twins that are 10 days old. These are F2 Drysdale X Romney. With no new purebred genetics coming into Australia I have been breeding up some “fresh” lines from some Romney ewes. This is what most people did in the 1980s when Drysdales were new in the country. Genetically, the Drysdale is “pure” Romney anyway since it is a one gene mutation that causes the horns and “hairiness”.  Purebred Drysdales are “NN” for the hairy/horn gene and the crossbreds are “Nn”. (Romneys being “nn” I think)  It can take 2-4 generations to get “pure” Drysdales from the crossing.

F2 Drysdale X Romney lambs (10 days old)

LambMetrics – Drysdale & English Leicester lambing, Aug 19th

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Two days worth of info here. 🙂  Too busy last night with getting ready for handspinners coming for a Farm & Fibre Day.

#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 15
Total Lambs Born: 43
Drysdale lambs (live total): 27
DrysdaleX lambs (total): 12
English Leicester lambs (live total): 2
Total Sets of Twins born: 11
Total Sets of Triplets born: 1
Total ewe lambs: 19
Total ram lambs: 24
Ewes lambed /72: 29 (40.3 %)
Lamb % : 141% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 3
Losses: 1 ewe, 2 lambs (stillborn)

Notable Midwifery tales:

Finally! Some English Leicester lambs have arrived. Twin ewes delivered their lambs within 12 hours of each other.
(Note very ordinary picture of the first one, using a flash.)

 

Quite a few Drysdale ewes gave birth too. Here was one young ewe that lambed this afternoon.