A beautiful spring day

I stayed home today to do my taxes. What a task to undertake on such a beautiful spring day. It is bright and sunny, in the 70's. The lambs are out playing.

Last night, a yearling gave birth to a single ram lamb. He is spotted. So far, the three yearlings have all had single births. That's a first. I usually get several sets of twins from the first-timers. Of course, yearlings with single lambs are a lot easier to deal with, since they always have enough milk for one lamb, but not always two. I have one more yearling ewe left to lamb. Hopefully, she won't wait too long. It's no fun being in a pen by yourself.

I had a delivery of barley today. Soon, I will start going through a lot of feed. The lambs are just beginning to nibble at the creep feed, but since their rumens are still developing, their creep feed is a mixture of cracked corn and soybean meal. They pick out the soybean meal. They also love licking at the minerals.

Of course, their favorite activity is standing in the feeders or hurdling them. I've got a few bales of hay in the creep area, so that they can play king of the hill. It's fun to watch the littliest lambs take a flying leap off the bale.

A successful lambing season

It was a very successful lambing season. The ewes lambed in 18 days, for the most part unassisted. The only ones left to lamb are two yearlings, which I bred one heat cycle later. My other two yearlings were impregnanted early by the roving black ram. They are both nursing black ewe lambs.

At last count, there are ~72 lambs, ~2.2 lambs per ewe. One lamb from a set of triplets was born dead, and I found a 4-day old triplet lamb dead. I think his mother crushed him. Other than that, there have been no mortalities.


I'm bottle feeding two lambs. One is a twin from a ewe that rejected her. Her mother is a "racist!" She gave birth to a black lamb and a white lamb, and she doesn't let her white lamb nurse. I call the lamb, "Annie." I've grown very attached to her. That's the problem with bottle lambs. I am also supplementing a triplet lamb, out of a 2 year old ewe. She could probably raise him, but he was born small so I had offered him a bottle. I named him "Hondo." This year's naming theme is western characters.

While the majority of the lambs are white, there are lots of colored lambs, including 6 black lambs, of which 4 are ewe lambs. I'll probably keep one of the ewe lambs, to ensure the continuation of color in my flock. I may keep another red lamb, too. There are a few of those. I enjoy the different colored lambs, and so do many of my customers.


This year, there are more ewe lambs than ram lambs. Many of my best ewes are raising two ewe lambs. That will make my selection decisions hard. There will be so many good ewe lambs to pick from. On the other hand, the ewe (#426) that I wanted to have ram lambs did. She gave birth to two monster boys, 13.2 and 12.7 lbs. I nicknamed them the "Bruise Brothers." To go along with the western theme, I'll probably dub them Butch and Sundance. They are growing fast and at least one, if not both, should be RR. Mom is QR while the sire is RR.

The hoop house is full. I let the twins out for the first time today. I will probably alternate between the twin and triplet pens. There's not enough grass to keep them out all the time. It's been raining a lot, so hopefully the grass will grow quickly. The ewes and lambs are eating me out of house and home!

Half way through

Half of my ewes have lambed. I have 38 lambs out of 18 ewes: 5 sets of triplets, 10 sets of twins, and 3 singles (2 out of lambs/yearlings that lambed early). Though I'm having a run of ram lambs, the ewe lambs still outnumber the ram lambs 20 to 18. I have six black lambs. Four of them are ewe lambs.

There haven't been any problems so far, knock on wood. I pulled a lamb out today that was coming backwards. The ewe looked wore out, so I thought I'd help her out. In fact, it was several minutes before she got up. She, #01, has two nice size ram lambs. Frecks, #517, had triplets today, all boys. One is on the small side.

Yesterday, #353 and #426 gave birth to three big ram lambs. I figured out that #426 owned two of them and #353 had the single. I am disappointed when a mature ewe only has one lamb (353 is 4 years old), but sometimes it happens. She'll go back to having multiples next year. It should grow out to be a nice ram lamb. Earlier in the day, Darby, my favorite (#309), had a split set of twins. The ram lamb has the biggest ears; he could probably fly! I'm going to have to get a picture of him.

There are still many good ewes left to lamb, including my best ewe, #24. Other good ewes still to go include #18, the red ewe, and her daughter, and #526, daughter of #24 and granddaughter of old #92. Freckles hasn't had her babies yet, nor has #423, another flock favorite. Old #11 hasn't gone yet either. Hopefully, the other two ewe lambs/yearlings won't lamb for several weeks, which was my intention. The black ram kept jumping the gates and impregnanted two of the ewe lambs early. It's probably why they had singles, which is fine with me.

Happy Birthday

My birthday was on Monday. It was a good one, several days of special treatment, gifts, and good food. I enjoyed a four-day weekend. I wanted to spend time with my sheep. I turned 45. Age doesn't bother me too much, not like a lot of people, who fret at each birthday.

I've got twenty something lambs now. Since my last post, there have been three sets of twins, two sets of triplets, and a single birth. The single birth was from a yearling, #612. She had a black ewe lamb, the first to be sired by one of the ram lambs, obviously the black one. The birth was the result of the ram jumping over a gate, since I had planned to breed the ewe lambs three weeks later than the mature ewes. It is a nice lamb, and she is a good mother. I don't mind when some of the yearlings have single births.

On my birthday, #92, the "matriarch" of the flock presented me with a big set of twin ewe lambs. She is a fantastic ewe. They will be nice lambs. I will probably keep at least one. #92's granddaughter, #461, who I call "Pretty," had a nice set of split twins. Prior to that, #513, daughter of #92, also had twin ewe lambs, also nice lambs. One is tan in color. All three of these ewes are excellent mothers.

That evening, #309 gave birth to triplets. One was stillborn. It was a strange lambing. She had the first lamb around 4 p.m. The second two were born about five hours later. Perhaps, the second two were difficult for her to deliver. But, she and her two lambs -- a ewe and a ram --are doing fine. These were the first lambs to be sired by Bull's Eye. Her daughter, who I gave to my dad as a lamb, gave birth to triplets yesterday, but the smallest lamb didn't make it.

This evening, #305, had triplet ewe lambs. I'll be going out to check the sheep shortly. I am offering one lamb a bottle. Its mother doesn't always let it nurse enough.

It snowed today, about 6 inches. It's a light fluffy snow. So, I worked from home.

American Idol
I don't have a favorite on American Idol yet. I missed the boys singing last night because I had a class to teach. I like Phil, the bald-headed guy, whose wife just had a baby. I also like Sundance. I don't care for the young man -- I don't recall his name -- that the judges always rave about. I watched the women sing tonight. There are several that I like. I think that Lakisha is the best. I like her personality and story, though tonight she revealed that she is afraid of animals (odd). It will be interesting to see who gets voted off tomorrow night. It won't necessarily be the ones that should. It may be a singing contest, but it takes more than a good voice to win this thing.

A fast start, a good start

It's been a fast and good start with lambing season. Since last night, three sets of triplets have been born. I now have 15 lambs, a fairly even split between males and females. So far, all of the lambs have been sired by Hurricane. My dad doesn't have any lambs yet.

I breathed a sigh of relief when #22, my first black ewe, finished lambing and passed her afterbirth. Last year, she had a c-section. Everything went fine with the c-section, but I had some concern about her next lambing. She gave birth to three black lambs! Two are solid black and one has a tiny spot of white on its forehead. They are two rams and a ewe.

This morning, I found #397 with a set of triplets. Two of the lambs are white; one is brown. Two rams and a ewe. Last year, #397 had gotten very obese. She delivered her lambs late in the season. I had almost given up on her. Every year, she has at least one lamb with color. She's a good ewe.

This morning, #13, one of my best ewes, delivered triplets: two ewes and a ram. Two of them have red necks. Last year, #13 raised a nice set of triplet ram lambs. She ranked second in performance. I got a beautiful picture of her with her three boys. She's my "poster" ewe for the Katahdin breed.

So far, everything is going well. I've got my fingers crossed that this continues. You never know what can happen during lambing season.

I'm going to have to get a picture of the black triplets. Triplet black babies has to be somewhat rare.

First born

Here are some pictures of the first born lambs of the 2007 season.

#550's lambs are trying to nurse from the same side.

One of #536's twin ewe lambs.

#537's lambs are all legs.

Little voices

The 2007 lambing season is underway. Lambing season is like Christmas morning -- every day. When I go out to the hoop house, I am anticipating what is waiting for me. When I hear little voices, I know that new lambs have entered the world -- and they are doing okay.

So far, it's been a good start to the lambing season. During the past 24 hours, three ewes have given birth to twin lambs. Four ewe lambs and 2 ram lambs. All of the mothers are two-year olds. One of the older ewes (#01) has been trying to steal the lambs as they are born, which is confusing the young mothers a bit. But, they come around once the older ewe has been removed from the picture.

One of my black ewes (#536) lambed this morning -- a black lamb and a white lamb, two ewe lambs. She's not sure she wants the white lamb. Could this possibly be a racist sheep! I think she'll take the lamb, if I am patient with and give her a little time. Otherwise, she'll go into the hand stanchion. She will raise both lambs. That is not negotiable.

More ewes could go at any time. I know for a fact that #92, the matriarch of the flock, was bred the first or second day I put the rams in.