Thursday, May 24, 2012

Rita's twins and LOTS of rain

Quick post to show what I found in the barn this morning. Rita with twin gulmoget BFL/Shetland lambs!

The ram lamb is the lighter one in front and the darker ewe lamb is in the back of the photo above. I'm so excited that they are both gulmogets!  But I'm sure they are also English Blue Pattern, which means they will probably have significant side dusting in adulthood.
Rita is being an even better mom that Rose. Rose was pretty noisy that first day when I jugged her and her lamb. Rita seems content to rest. Of course, she did double the work, having twins as a yearling, so she's probably just too tired to give me much trouble. She's going to need lots of nutrition to raise up twins as a yearling.



Rose's little ram is very dark. He's such a little cutie though. I'm kind of tempted to wether both the crossbred rams to keep as fiber producers.  Of course I want to keep all the lambs, but I can't.

Here's a shot of the two linebred gulmoget ewe lambs I got out of Mia and Maddy last week.  Their colors are very interesting. You can see Rita's twins in the jug too. Gotta love those gullies!
So now there's just one more BFL to lamb, that's Leta. I had ladies over in January and they noted a white BFL getting bred while we took a coffee break (how embarrassing!).  I cussed out Hansel and marked the calendar for June 8th. I'm not sure if that was Leta or Luna.  Leta's got a nice bag going and looks like she'll single. Luna does not appear to be bred.  I hope I don't have to wait until June 8th for Leta's lamb.
Twin sisters Leta on the left and Luna on the right.
We got lots of rain last night,.  Almost 5 inches in the past 24 hours and still drizzly. Good for the pasture and hay fields, but the skylight in my bathroom is leaking. Darn!
The wet weather didn't stop the mama hen from bringing her 9 chicks out this morning. I've locked them back up for now. I'm heading down to the Twin Cities for my Visual Journal class at the Virginia Piper Cancer Institute this afternoon.

5 comments:

  1. I'll take about 2 1/2" of rain off your hands. It's a dust bowl down here and everyone is getting very worried.
    Lovely lambs Barb, I love the guls, they are fabulous.

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  2. We could use a little of your rain, too, but I think I am kind of close to Kelly. Cute lambies, still waiting on Cleo. Love the mom and chicks picture.

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  3. I would love to share that rain with you guys. We got another inch after I posted this. I only went about 25 miles toward the Twin Cities and decided to just skip the visual journal class today. The rain was coming down so hard, the driving was difficult and I didn't really want to spend 3.5 hours on the road.

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  4. Your chicks are darling! We have about three hens who are broody. One has only three eggs, I'm not sure how many the rest have. It is really dry here-perhaps it will come my way!!!

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  5. Thanks Laura, that's a Buff Chantcler hen, she went broody 3 times last year and each time only hatched out 3. Six of these chicks are from Ameracauna eggs. Good luck with your broodies. I hope you got some of that rain too. I checked the Shetland goose eggs, she's been setting for over a week. None are fertile...I'm pretty sure it's the gander's fault. I suppose I'll have to find some goslings for her to raise up.

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