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You are here: Home / Archives for lambs

lambs

LambMetrics – 27th August 2022

August 27, 2022 by Wendy Beer

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.

Quick one tonight but basically… lambs everywhere.

Today’s tally included 7 sets of twins, 1 set of triplets and a bunch of singles. I lost track of the singles!!

A ewe was assisted at about 9pm last night and she wasn’t interested in her lamb in the slightest so little lambie joined the crew in the shed. (The bonus was that the Trainee Assistant Midwife got to pull her first lamb!) We have a Gang of 3 at present, with a few extra still being supplemented or assisted.

Morning started out with having to do a quick separation trick on Hermione due to her trying to steal a Drysdale’s twins. Figured that meant her own delivery was imminent…..

Then there was pulling a set of tangled MerinoX twins – 3 feet and 2 heads at the same time was a bit much for the poor ewe – and then there was a plumbing job that needed doing to keep the water troughs in the paddocks full.

And then it was back to a some bottles and checking on the various sets of twins that had been born.

Managed to get some of yesterday’s lambs tagged up. Tedious but will save time in the long run.

The afternoon “run” started normal enough with a bunch of new lambs in the Singles mob.

  • English Leicester & lamb
  • Charly and her new boy
  • Drysdale ewe & lamb

But the star of the afternoon is Hermione. Triplets. Yep, she did it. The bonus was the ram lamb with the tri-colour Drysdale pattern. For reference: Hermione is a English Leicester – Drysdale cross. She was joined to the silver English Leicester. She’s done a very good job – no assistance this year and the lambs are basically all the same size. She’s raised 3 before so she’s very relaxed.

  • Hermione with her triplets
  • A bunch of trouble, no doubt!
  • Ewe lamb with English Blue pattern with bonus facial markings
  • Ram lamb
  • Tri-colour butt!

To complete the day of lambspam (there were a couple more assisted deliveries and lamb bottles and rearranging to round out the day!)

Just born – with a little assistance

LambMetrics – 26th August 2022

August 26, 2022 by Wendy Beer

Seems that some sheep prefer to eat their hay whilst standing on top of the big bale….. #dawnscene

Another day flat out getting around everyone and the #lamsplosion is on again. At least five sets of twins (mostly all ewe lambs!) and the count in the Singles paddock went from 2 at 8am to 6-7 at 9am..! Will do the full stats tomorrow when I get the rest of today’s tagged up and counted properly.

Had to give a hand to a young Castledale maiden ewe and she has no milk and no interest whatsoever in a lamb so there was another timesuck on the day with a newbie youngster to run around after. Failures in mothering have been noted….. As a general rule the non-stud sheep are definitely calmer than last year and so that is greatly assisting the record keeping. The maiden ewes that are letting me handle their lambs without running off are getting a big Gold Star and commendation in the Midwivery notebook. 🙂

Bottle stats are running at 2 on the full bottle and supplementing 5-7 in varying degrees (winding back most of them as mums’ milk seem to be coming in, hooray).

Panda, our superfine black ewe had her twins today. Another set of ewes. 🙂

, “Don’t look at the camera, Panda”! :p

And another lovely set of Drysdale twins too. (More ewe lambs!)

Newborn Drysdale lambs

Will have to clear some of the old photos off my phone so I can take more…. sort of “maxing out” at the moment!

The Trainee Assistant Midwife is on duty for the weekend but hopefully the ewes won’t give her too much experience all at once..! But definitely lots of lamb cuddling and bottle-feeding. 🙂

LambMetrics – 23rd August 2022

August 23, 2022 by Wendy Beer

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: 3
Total Lambs Born: 24
Drysdale lambs (live total): 3
Drysdale X lambs (live total): 4
English Leicester lambs (live total): 15
English Leicester X lambs (live total): 0
Total Sets of Twins born: 7
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 16
Total ram lambs: 8
Ewes lambed /86: 17  (19.7 %)
Lamb % : 129.4 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 3
Losses: 2 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

Castledale & Merino Flocks

Born today: 5
Total Lambs Born: 27
MerinoX lambs (live total): 6
Castledale lambs (live total): 19
Total Sets of Twins born: 10
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Ewes lambed /98: 17  (17.3 %)
Lamb % : 147% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 2
Losses: 2 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]


NOTABLE MIDWIFERY TALES:

Very busy today so will try and keep it short before I fall asleep whilst typing..!

Cute thing this morning:

Things We Don’t Want To See In The Morning:

  • Someone looks stuck….
  • Safely restrained
  • Not hopeful
  • Well, that was a surprise.
  • Restraints are staying on until bonding occurs…

Pleased to report that mother and son have successfully bonded. It took a while but patience won.

Happy thing for the morning:

Hermione’s daughter had a black & white combo yesterday

Another Thing I Don’t Want To See In The Morning:

Unfortunately, two huge teats are not conducive to a live lamb. 🙁 Managed to get her into the shed though and milked her out – that colostrum was very handy this evening to feed a set of twins. Am currently trying to graft that bottle-fed English Leicester lamb onto her. Using the traditional “skin of the lost lamb” method. She wants to accept the lamb but we haven’t quite achieved standing still while he tries to drink. Hopefully by the morning?!

I had better finish on a Good Thing.

So here is Minty and her lad.

He’s such a poser. LOL

LambMetrics – 22nd August 2022

August 22, 2022 by Wendy Beer

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: 7
Total Lambs Born: 21
Drysdale lambs (live total): 1
Drysdale X lambs (live total): 4
English Leicester lambs (live total): 14
English Leicester X lambs (live total): 0
Total Sets of Twins born: 6
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 13
Total ram lambs: 8
Ewes lambed /86: 15  (17.44 %)
Lamb % : 126.6 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 3
Losses: 2 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

Castledale & Merino Flocks

Born today: 15
Total Lambs Born: 22
MerinoX lambs (live total): 6
Castledale lambs (live total): 15
Total Sets of Twins born: 8
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Ewes lambed /98: 14  (14.28 %)
Lamb % : 150% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 1 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]


NOTABLE MIDWIFERY TALES:

At 6.30am this morning I was greeted by four sets of twins.

It only got busier from there.

(It should be noted that I didn’t have to do anything immediately with said sets of twins. I had lambs to feed first!)

Maiden Drysdale ewe with her new twins (Drysdale X)

After the various lambs were fed it was time to do a quick check of the Singles mob. One young black English Leicester ewe looked in labour but she was up and maybe just needed another quarter hour to sort herself out. So walked around and managed to catch and tag the two born late yesterday. Leave it too long and they run too fast…! A scan with the trusty old binoculars showed there were four new lambs with Castledale or Merino mothers. A lot of maiden ewes in that lot so held off going near them straight away. (Not sure how I will end up with the lambmetrics of this mob as they are trickier to document!)

Everything seemed pretty quiet so turned my attention back to the black ewe. She seemed to be wanting to strain a little and I could see a tippy toe. She wasn’t just going to lie down and let me help though. That would be too easy. However, one of the older English Leicester ewes was nearby so I encouraged her to head for a laneway and told the black one to go with her (and a half dozen others). They waddled over to the gate and I captured the black ewe and restrained her. Naturally I thanked the old ewe for her assistance. Credit where credit is due. 😉

Not sure what the ewe had been growing her bub with but by heck he’s a chunky monkey. Don’t normally have them born with such thickness of bone in their legs. Made it a little tricky for his head to exit without assistance. Thankfully, all the right bits were in the right places so after a few minutes of jiggling I managed to haul him out. His tail looks like he is 3 weeks old!

There were about twenty lambs born today, including another set of English Leicester black/white twins. Lots of Castledales hitting the ground now.

Forgot to take photos this afternoon. Will try to take some more tomorrow if the weather is nice.

LambMetrics – 20th August 2022

August 20, 2022 by Wendy Beer

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: 6
Drysdale lambs (live total): 0
Drysdale X lambs (live total): 1
English Leicester lambs (live total): 3
English Leicester X lambs (live total): 0
Total Sets of Twins born: 1
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 3
Total ram lambs: 3
Ewes lambed /86: 5  (5.81 %)
Lamb % : 80 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 2
Losses: 2 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

Castledale & Merino Flocks

Born today: 4
Total Lambs Born: 4
MerinoX lambs (live total): 4
Castledale lambs (live total): 0
Total Sets of Twins born: 2
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Ewes lambed /98: 2  (2.04 %)
Lamb % : 200% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 0 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]


NOTABLE MIDWIFERY TALES:

Quiet for a couple of days and then BOOM.

3 sets of twins today. 5 ewes and 1 ram lamb.

A maiden Merino ewe had her twins in the early hours but could only count to one. So at daybreak I got her into a pen in the shed to allow some “quiet, mothering time”. A little bit of LamBoost for the lamb feeling left out and then she let me help the lamb drink. Happy to report that she can now count to TWO. Will leave her indoors overnight to make sure she is fully settled with them.

Another, slightly older, Merino ewe had also lambed over night with twins and she could count to two. So that was great. This evening though I was suspicious that the lambs weren’t getting enough colostrum – they kept sucking on the teats and were still crying – so I’ve given them supplemental colostrum and put them in the shed for the night also.

Pebbles, one of the English Leicesters, decided she probably should lamb…. she was a bit too posh to push though (like last year) so thankfully I realised in time. She had a white ram lamb (he’s stained yellow in the first pic due to the meconium in his birthing fluids) and a black ewe lamb who looks like she will have the English Blue “wings” pattern like her Dad, Stirling, and Pebbles’ mum, Mopsy. She was up on her feet very fast. 🙂

That pretty much wraps up today! Hopefully more #lambspam tomorrow!

LambMetrics – 17th August 2022

August 17, 2022 by Wendy Beer

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: 4
Drysdale lambs (live total): 0
Drysdale X lambs (live total): 1
English Leicester lambs (live total): 1
English Leicester X lambs (live total): 0
Total Sets of Twins born: 0
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 2
Total ram lambs: 2
Ewes lambed /86: 4  (4.65 %)
Lamb % : 50 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 1
Losses: 2 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

Castledale & Merino Flocks

Born today: 0
Total Lambs Born: 0
MerinoX lambs (live total): 0
Castledale lambs (live total): 0
Total Sets of Twins born: 0
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Ewes lambed /98: 0  (0 %)
Lamb % : 0% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 0 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]


NOTABLE MIDWIFERY TALES:

A little voice this morning…..

A first-time Drysdale mother but she is doing well, despite being a little wary of The Shepherdess’ involvement. By the end of the day she was relaxing a bit (assisted by Aunty Paris’ calm demeanour).

This lamb is sired by a White Suffolk ram and so the lamb is not purebred Drysdale.

The morning soured a little when I discovered that one of the silver English Leicester young ewes had lambed and a *#%$%* fox had killed it. 🙁

This year may have some challenges.

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