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| Maddy and her ewe lamb |
The color on this one is pretty puzzling, she looks decidedly brown on her back half but definitely black on her head. I think maybe she's emsket and Mia's lamb is shaela.
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| Mia and her ewe lamb |
This morning at 4 a.m. I checked the barn cam and saw that Rose had lambed. So I whipped on some sweats and ran out to find she delivered a good sized English Blue Patterned ram lamb. He's a Shetland/Bluefaced Liecester cross. She had licked him off well and was very attentive to him - great! I stripped her teats and put a section of hog panel up around them since Maddy was still in the Sydell pen. Went back in to sleep a little longer. Before going back out, I mixed up some lamb milk replacer with some powdered colostrum. I've never had a BFL lamb without having to supplement for the first 6-8 hours because the moms are a bit touchy with their bags or the lambs can't find the teat. But this is what I saw when I got out there.
Amazing! What a good mom she is and to think she's only a yearling. I wonder if it's the influence of her sire, Ward Harwell and the fact that the hybrid lambs may be a bit more aggressive nursers than purebred BFLs. I hope my other two BFL ewes are as easy as Rose. Her lamb was doing so well, I let them out on grass for a while this morning.
Looks like Rita (in the foreground above) will be next and she's definitely carrying a bigger load than Rose was.
Not to be outdone, the hen hatched out a batch of chicks this weekend too. I haven't let them out of the barn, so no photos yet. The Shetland goose started setting on about a dozen eggs last week. I hope some of her eggs are fertile this year.
Cute lambs. Looks like you are having a good lambing season. Cleo will be next here.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sharrie. So far, so good. I've had 7 ewe lambs born and only 3 ram lambs. I did lose Camille's smaller twin ewe lamb right after shearing last month. She was 11 days old and I thought she was doing good. I'm not sure what happened, she looked fine to me the night before Matt found her dead in the paddock. I was away at the vessel class, she may not have nursed from her mom after shearing. Very sad. Two more BFLs to lamb and I'll be done. I'd like to get at least one crossbred ewe lamb. The crosses need their tails docked and I'll wether the crossbred ram lambs. Their fiber is SO NICE.
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