Yearling babies

Nine of the 11 yearlings have lambed: six sets of twins and three single births. One of the sets of twins is my dad's ewe.

This morning, the black yearling (I call her Lakisha after last year's American Idol contestant) had two hooves sticking slightly out of her, but was showing no signs of labor or distress. So, I checked her out. I discovered that the baby was coming backwards.

The hooves were pointed down and further inside was a tail, not a head. I got the lamb out without too much difficulty. It was fine. The ewe was relieved and instantly starting licking her offspring.

The last two yearlings were bred later and should have their lambs closer to May. Crissy is bagging up. I don't see anything with Scarlet yet.

The yearlings are doing a good job with their lambs. Three of the yearlings with twin lambs initiatially disowned one of their lambs, but within a day or two, they forgot why they didn't like their second lamb.

One of the yearlings gave birth to a mostly black lamb. The twin is white. I'm not sure where the black lamb came from since both parents are white. Several of Ears's progeny are showing his characteristic big ears.

Ears is supposed to be picked up this weekend. He's sold for breeding. I'm going to miss him. He's got a lot of personality.

The rest of the lambs are doing fine. They spend their days outside frolicking in the pasture and their nights inside cuddling with their mothers and picking at the creep feed. The pregnant yearlings have access to the pasture at night and early in the morning.

The quads are growing well. Of course, they should be. They're double dipping. They nurse their mother and drink milk from a bottle. I offer them milk two times per day. Another lamb, a twin from my 10 year old ewe, occasionally nurses from the bottle. I could probably discontinue the bottles, but the quads are doing so well.

Another yearling lambs

Another yearling ewe lambed yesterday. #7-087 had a split set of twins. She's a full sister to the ewe that had quads. After he got his legs, one of the lambs ventured far away into another pen. So when I put the ewe and her twins into a jug, she wasn't sure about this second lamb who had "run away." Sometimes she lets him nurse. Sometimes, she butts him.

The young mother is "confused," but slowly coming around. In the meantime, the "runaway" has become good at nursing from behind. I'll keep her in the jug until she accepts both lambs. If necessary, I'll put her in a head stanchion.

This evening, I merged two groups of ewes with twin lambs and set up the creep area, giving access to both the triplets and twins to creep feed. I start the lambs on cracked corn, soybean meal, and minerals. When the lambs are about a month old, I begin changing the creep ration to whole barley and a 38% protein pellet. I cut back on grain after weaning.

Already, the lambs are attacking the creep with vigor. At this age, they chew on anything they can find. They enjoy their expanded freedom and like to climb onto and into everything. They love to race around the feeders and kick their legs out. It's a good time to be a lamb.

I was figuring that the yearlings would start to lamb after April 1st. That's based on a gestation period of 145 days. Obviously, the first two yearlings had gestation periods of less than 145 days. I put most of the ewe lambs with rams 21 days after the mature ewes were joined with rams. This enables me to manage the ewe lambs/yearlings separately.

My dad still has one ewe left to lamb. One of the yearlings I am lambing is also his. Since he only kept one ewe lamb back, we thought it best to keep it with the other yearlings.

The quads continue to do well. Two of the lambs drink little supplemental milk. The other two get milk from both the ewe and me. All of the quads are bouncy and ready to join a larger group of lambs.