Sunday, May 06, 2007

Last of the lambs born

I'd been tying to keep up to date with lambing information but (obviously) have failed again.

April 27 ewe # 427 had twins, a white ram lamb and a black ewe lamb. We tagged them 66 and 67 respectively.

On April 28 a yearling ewe with # 42 had a single ewe lamb we tagged 68.

Nothing happened birth wise until May 4, when ewe 410, the last mature ewe yet to lamb, had a single ewe lamb.

That will probably do it for the season.

We had 10 yearling ewes in the herd this spring, four of them had lambs, the other 6 most likely will not. We have had about this sort of result with yearlings in the past and consider it to be acceptable.

It is possible one or more of the yearlings will lamb later. We left the rams in with the herd for quite a while over the winter, just because it was convenient to do so.

Any way, with a herd of 30 mature ewes and 10 yearlings we had a lamb crop of 49. We have 21 ram lambs and 28 ewe lambs.

Only one did not survive. Over all we had very few problems and a relatively sort lambing season compared to what we have been through in the past.

No records were broken for productivity either high or low. We certainly had fewer twins, as a percentage of the crop, than last year.

We are pleased with the crop so far. Now all we have to do is get them to market age and sold. So far, so good.