Single Ram Lamb

Thursday (4/26) ewe #428 had a single ram lamb. She had no problems and needed no help.

Local Wildlife

My bride was out in the pasture with the camera the other day and got some pictures of this eagle.

We see it around from time to time, it no doubt nests within a few miles of here.
Click on the photo to enlarge.

Five more lambs since Sunday

Monday ewe #413 had a ram lamb tagged 32.

My bride pulled it, perhaps unnecessarily.

In any case, ewe and lamb are fine.

Tuesday ewe #104 had a single ewe lamb.

A large black ewe lamb.

Also on Tuesday, the yearling ewe #15 had a ram lamb tagged 62.

On Wednesday, ewe #60 had twins, both female.

This ewe was so enormous we had her picked as the one we thought would lamb first.

She was one of the last, obviously.

The lambs were good size, but certainly set no records. Go figure.

Catching Up with the Lambing data

Man, I've let this get out of date. Things have been busy, both with lambing and otherwise.

Thursday (4/19) ewe #37, who is herself only a year old had a single ewe lamb we tagged 58.

This ewe (the mother, that is) did everything she could to turn this lamb into a bummer.

Although she did not reject the lamb outright she would not allow it to nurse.

We made a field jug out of a cattle panel in the corner of the pasture and penned them up. Then we put a rope halter on the mama and tied her to the fence so she could not stop the lamb from nursing. The lamb nursed this way several times a day for a couple of days before the mama allowed it to feed with out being tied up.

Ewe #415 also had a single on Thursday. She had a lamb last year, the first of the season as it happens. She had no problems and needed no help.

On Friday ewe #8, another yearling, had a single ram lamb that was tagged #5. She did fine and needed no help.

Saturday ewe #802 had twins, one male and one female, tagged 17 and 16 respectively. No problems.

Today (Sunday) ewe #437 had twins. She went off by herself under a tree to lamb, as they often do. By the time we noticed, one lamb was fine but the other was dead. Both were ewes, we tagged the survivor 18.

Single ewe lamb

At some point yesterday, ewe number 169 had a single lamb. It is a female and was tagged # 56.

I wasn't around for the event. When feeding last evening she was well back away from the others and did not come all the way in to eat.

The lamb was up following its mama and except for the fact that it had no ear tag it could have been any of the 30 some lambs we have bouncing around the pasture now.

By the way, we don't just look at the lamb to decide who the sire is. We ran the ewes and rams in separate breeding groups last fall for breeding season.

Two Single Lambs

The ewes gave us Monday off, I guess the with the cold front over the weekend anyone who was close went ahead and lambed.

Tuesday (April 17th) ewe #411 had a single ram lamb that we tagged 54.

In the evening ewe #155 had a single ram lamb that we tagged 55.

My bride thought this last lamb was taking too long and should be pulled. I didn't think so.

We pulled the lamb. Mother and lamb are fine.

It was getting dark by the time we got a picture of 155. My camera doesn't do well in low light so I won't post that one.

Another single ewe lamb

Late last night, nine or ten o’clock, ewe #416 had a single black ewe lamb.

The lamb was tagged #53 and is a female.

Six more lambs and the day ain’t over yet

A cold front came through at daybreak. By 9:30 we got over and inch of rain. Man, we needed it.

We have noticed that weather changes seem to cause lambs.

Ewe # 59 and a single ewe lamb tagged 46.

Ewe #414, who we call grandma because she is the mother of our black breeding ram, had twin ewe lambs tagged 47 and 48.

These lambs are the first “Holstein” lambs of the season.

Ewe #6, who spends most of her time training the other sheep to go through electric fences, had a single ewe lamb we tagged number 49.

She had it on the wrong side of the fence of course.

Ewe #1, my bride’s special pet, had twins. One ewe lamb tagged 50 and a ram lamb tagged 51.

All this before noon.

Four sets of twins

It was a beautiful day for lambing here at the a3farm and indeed lots of lambing was done.

Four different ewes delivered twins. All the ewes from the new bunch we bought last spring, all had had lambs before but not here. They had been on a winter lambing schedule at the Oak Lane Farm where we got them. Most are three year olds.

Ewe 103 had twin ewe lambs.

Ewe 419 also had twin ewe lambs.

Ewe 432 had twin ram lambs.

Ewe 435 had one of each.

Ewe 435 was the first one this year that needed any help.

My bride went to check the sheep just at daybreak while I was working on my first cup of coffee. She came back in saying she needed help. The lamb needed to be pulled and the momma sheep wasn’t going to stand still and cooperate.

The first lamb, the female as it turned out, had one front leg tucked back under her. She had her head and one front hoof out and got stuck right about there.

The mother is rather small and still had a second lamb in her so there was no room to reach around and straighten things out. I have great big hands, which didn’t help.

New lambs are built like gumby dolls, flexible in ways that you never expect. That’s a good thing at times like this. For a while I thought that leg was attached to a different lamb, but eventually I decided it was the right front leg of the lamb that had emerged to its shoulder.

Eventually I got her eased all the way out and as far as I could tell she had all the usual parts in the usual places. She was still breathing too.

I set her over by the mothers head, and after mom rested a while she decided she could take it from there. She started cleaning the lamb, and then had the other one a few minutes later without problem.

We didn't get pictures of everything. The picture here is one of the group from yesterday, but I'm not sure which one.

Two ewes and a ram

Thursday the 12th ewe #106 had twin ewe lambs sometime before noon.

They were tagged 29 and 30.

Later in the day ewe #3 had a single ram lamb.

He was tagged number 31.

Single Ram Lamb

Tuesday before noon ewe #412 had a single ram lamb. We tagged it number 28. No picture yet.

Twins

About 24 hours ago our ewe #2, the funny looking blue faces Leicester, had a set of twins.

They are a ewe lamb numbered 26 and a ram lamb numbered 27.

Neither was weighed (the scale is officially dead) but both are quite small, in the five pound something range. The mother is also small and the lambs seem healthy.

Sorry about the photo, it was taken at a distance in poor light.

Lots of lambs

Last evening about suppertime ewe # 115 delivered twin ram lambs. We numbered them 11 and 14.

She had no problems and needed no help. She is also one of the new group of ewes we bought last spring.

This morning at daybreak we had five more lambs on the ground.

Ewe # 4 had twin ewe lambs. They are numbered 21 and 22.

Ewe #170 and twins as well, one ram and one ewe. They are numbered 23 and 24.

Ewe #400 had a single ewe lamb. She is numbered 25.

No weights on any of these yet, the scale was acting up but it seems OK now.

We have two breeding rams, one white Kathadin and one black that is mostly Florida Native. It’s easy to tell who sired who.

Lambing season starts Easter Sunday.

The plan was to move the ewes to new ground so the lambs will be exposed to fewer pathogens when they hit the ground.

We got the fences set up and went to get the sheep from the dry lot where we have been penning them up at night.

We found the first lambs of the season in the dry lot with everyone else.

No one explained to them about pathogens, so they simply proceeded to bounce around the way new lambs do.

The Ewe was #101, we tagged the lambs #9, a ram lamb @ 7lbs 1 oz, and #10, a ewe lamb @ 6lbs 15oz.

While we were at it we moved the chickens to new ground as well.

One down, thirty nine to go.

You all may be seeing lots of baby pictures in the near future.

Scratch the ground and shoot up the sheep

Over the winter the chickens were more or less confined in an area for the pasture near the house.

Lots of junk hay was tossed in for bedding. This area is destined to be this years corn and cowpea patch.

The original post is here: Big honking chicken tractor

Mr. Nelson brought his funky old Farmall tractor over and disked it all up.

He is 50% of the “Over the hill gang” that sometimes helps out around here, Mr. Cooney being the other half. Both these guys are 80 years old and have forgotten more about farming that I ever hope to know.

I asked him why the tractor wasn’t red like they usually are. He said that he has this one dressed up like the ones that the hi-way department had for mowing the roadside back in the day.

He shows this tractor and some old hit and miss engines he has at the County fair and such places.

Mr. Nelson is the guy who keeps my 1960 vintage New Holland hay baler going.

Saturday was spent watching Mr. Nelson work and fixing some fence. Sunday we gave the ewes their yearly CD/T vaccine boosters and helped butcher out friends Rhonda and Brian’s last nine broiler chickens.

Us part time farmers must sometimes do things when we can rather than when we should, but we muddle through somehow.