2014 Lambing
Lambing started President's Day with a set of triplets. Good thing I finished building our permananet lambing pens (4) in an unused part of our large barn. The triplets are strong and were moved to ...
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This morning.....
I went out for my 5:30am check and found 4 new born lambs and 3 ewes cleaning the lambs. A quick check of the backside of these 3 ewes confirmed my suspicion that we had 2 sets of twins and an interloper ewe. A brown pregnant ewe decided that the black lamb of a black ewe was hers and was cleaning the black lamb (likely the first born of the black ewe's twins). This created a problem in that the black lamb could not nurse on its mother (interloper kept interfering) AND the black ewe was starting to think the black lamb was not hers.
I moved the black ewe and her lambs to a pen; the black ewe was still reluctant to allow the black lamb to nurse. Now the interloper was thinking about a lamb in the other set of twins; so I moved them to another pen before that mom started to reject one of her lambs. We will keep an eye on the black ewe to make sure the black lamb can nurse; if she does not start accepting her lamb she will be tied up in a halter to where she cannot stop her lamb from nursing.
9 sets of triplets
12 sets of twins
1 single
1 still born
1 died
We just received more ear tags for lambs; so that means my wife will be tagging and recording the new lambs and deworming the new moms. This task will be easy for the family units in pens. For the family units that are loose my wife will use a dog to help her move and then catch the ewe and lambs in a stall or empty pen. One of my wife's dogs will catch lambs; hold the lamb down on the ground till she can pick it up.
I went out for my 5:30am check and found 4 new born lambs and 3 ewes cleaning the lambs. A quick check of the backside of these 3 ewes confirmed my suspicion that we had 2 sets of twins and an interloper ewe. A brown pregnant ewe decided that the black lamb of a black ewe was hers and was cleaning the black lamb (likely the first born of the black ewe's twins). This created a problem in that the black lamb could not nurse on its mother (interloper kept interfering) AND the black ewe was starting to think the black lamb was not hers.
I moved the black ewe and her lambs to a pen; the black ewe was still reluctant to allow the black lamb to nurse. Now the interloper was thinking about a lamb in the other set of twins; so I moved them to another pen before that mom started to reject one of her lambs. We will keep an eye on the black ewe to make sure the black lamb can nurse; if she does not start accepting her lamb she will be tied up in a halter to where she cannot stop her lamb from nursing.
9 sets of triplets
12 sets of twins
1 single
1 still born
1 died
We just received more ear tags for lambs; so that means my wife will be tagging and recording the new lambs and deworming the new moms. This task will be easy for the family units in pens. For the family units that are loose my wife will use a dog to help her move and then catch the ewe and lambs in a stall or empty pen. One of my wife's dogs will catch lambs; hold the lamb down on the ground till she can pick it up.
