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
lambs
LambMetrics – 9th 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.
Rain and rain yesterday so didn’t get any pictures taken.
Lost 2 new MerinoX lambs overnight. The weather was pretty awful and the ewes didn’t park under any of the (numerous) trees or other shelter options. Lamb losses have been minimal this year and haven’t lost any to “the environment” before now. But that’s nature for you. :/
Today was mild and there was quite a bit of sunshine which was great for the lambs after the deluge last night.
Paris decided to show off her newest fashion accessory…..
One Merino ewe needed some help. Lamb was perfectly presented but probably “overcooked” a little as it was huge and got a bit stuck. Decided to assist to make sure it wasn’t choked as it was stuck at a bad part of the process. Despite being a maiden the ewe was eager to be a good mumma so he is all cleaned up now (and looking like he is 2 weeks old already!)
(The blood is from the ewe, not the lamb!)
And now for some pet #lambspam!
Only about 6 ewes to lamb now….. A bit more tag checking tomorrow (weather permitting). Am looking forward to the final lot of stats. 🙂
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 – 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 – 31st 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.
Lovely spring day today after the rain of the last couple of days.
The morning was quiet – which was good because I needed to go off into town for part of the day.
Trying to catch up on the ear tagging and managed to get a bunch of the twins done so am nearly caught up.
Including this lovely set of twin Drysdale ewe lambs, sired by Gilbert.
This evening though, just as we were about to give the pet lambs their bottle, we noticed something odd in the Twins mob. Two ewes and two lambs… and then we realised that the lambs were a couple of days old and the ewe that looked like she had “just lambed” was actually a ewe who had not lambed. She was desperately trying to get a lamb. One of those “Things that make you go hmmmm”. I can’t recall actually seeing a Merino ewe thieve – although I have suspected it on occasion – so decided this was probably an urgent situation to rectify.
Sure enough, there was a lamb attempting to “exit the building”. But I couldn’t extract it. The lamb was alive and she was just a little tight in the cervix (my fingers hurt now) and despite getting a head and a leg I couldn’t get the second leg to come fully. And it was difficult to feel further in to find out where the sticking point was. Finally, in desperation because the lamb was in dire straits, I wondered if the second leg was actually a leg from the second lamb.
Changed tactics slightly but by the time the lamb came out it was almost dead and we were unable to get it going.
The second lamb was positioned in the same way – one front leg forward with the head and the other leg back – and unfortunately it was also expiring as it came out. 🙁
The poor ewe was calling out and running around trying to steal a lamb, any lamb. I wondered if she would consider one of the pet lambs if she was that keen…..
Well, she was kind of interested so she is currently penned up with three hungry lambs “looking for love”. Not sure it will work but in the realm of “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
The situation is a bit sad so we’d better finish on a more cheerful note:
