Our March Madness

I think the thief was accepted by the ewe because she had not bonded with her lambs. After bonding, she will not allow other lambs to nurse. The thief may continue to steal whenever and from any ewe it can; while the ewes are lined up eating grain from the troughs the thief will run down the line stealing where it can.

This year we’ve seen several ewes (close to delivery) trying to steal new born lambs of others ewes.

We take advantage of this strong mothering instinct. If we have a lamb get rejected by its mother, a weak lamb being out competed by siblings, or mother can’t produce enough milk for her lambs we will see if a new mother will accept another lamb. Some ewes are more accepting than others; we find it useful to have a few that are accepting.

Here’s a video from my wife with her and Grant moving ewes and lambs into barnyard

Mar 8: 2 sets of twins and 1 set of triplets
Mar 9 (as of 10:20am): 1 single and 4 sets of twins

The set of triplets was sad; two were stillborn.

A lamb died overnight. It didn't learn to nurse. We put the teat into its mouth many times and even tried a bottle, but it would not suckle. We tube fed it 3 times in the hope that over time it would learn to nurse and/or we could teach it but to no avail.

Today at around 10am my wife found 9 new born lambs with 5 ewes in a group. She then had to figure out which lamb(s) go with each ewe.

I just got txted that there may be another ewe starting labor. Occasionally we'll see them have a contraction or 2 hrs to days before the start of labor. I saw one last night and it didn't deliver until this morning.

53 live lambs
4 dead lambs
29 ewes have delivered
55-60 were bred (the ear tag #s are written down, I just don't recall the total)
The last possible due date is the end of March

BCSnob wrote:
Here’s a video from my wife with her and Grant moving ewes and lambs into barnyard

This was amazing to watch - but even funnier: as I played the video - Augie (18 month old Aussie) came racing over, stood with his front paws on my leg, and watched, fascinated!! He's never done that before....LOL!

I should have recorded Grant’s expression when I played it while he was in the room.

Mar 9: two singles and 4 sets of twins (updated to reflect one more single)
Mar 10: two sets of twins
Mar 11: two singles and 3 sets of twins (as of 9am)

Yesterday’s lower number of new lambs gave me an opportunity to clean out and the-bed 5 out of out 7 pens in the barn. Dig up the wet and dirty straw, add clean straw, add new hay to feed racks, and make sure water bucks are clean and full. Good thing this got done since there were 6 new sets of lambs this morning.

37 ewes delivered
66 live lambs
4 dead lambs

Yesterday Fern and I brought the flock into the barnyard for the night. About 1/2 down the hill to the barn two lambs decided to run back (without their mothers) to where they had been. Fern, like most young dogs, does not view little lambs as something to be worked. Like most young dogs they are wary when the lambs approach them. This meant that I had to run to catch the lambs. They can easily outrun me when they decide to dart. Fern would not stop the lambs when they ran towards her and when I approached the lambs they would dart away. They would follow Fern when she was moving back up the hill but not when I called Fern to come towards me. Let’s just say I have no need to pay for a gym membership to get my cardio work out. (2800 steps on a steep hill while bringing in the flock and chasing lambs)

I am now in serious need of lamb hugs LOL!

Mar 12: 4 sets of twins
Mar 13: 1 single and 3 sets of twins
Mar 14: 3 singles and 2 sets of twins
Mar 15: 1 set of twins (as of 8:30am)

51 ewes have lambed
90 live lambs
4 dead lambs

After lunch on Sunday we checked on the flock and found three new born lambs; a black on with a black ewe and two mostly while lambs each with a mostly white ewe. We brought the black lamb and ewe into the barn with out issues and she delivered another lamb. We brought one of the white ewes and a lamb into the barn without issues. The last white ewe was too skittish to follow me carrying her lamb and was too determined for a dog to bring her in on her own; so we brought the entire flock into the barn yard. After a lot of running around in the barnyard we were finally able to get the skittish ewe into a pen in the barn.

We noticed the calm white ewe had not delivered a lamb (too clean and dry under her tail) even though she was mothering and nursing one of the white lambs. Both white lambs were about the same size and coloration. We put both white lambs with the skittish ewe and she starting mothering and nursing the one that was not with her. We kept the calm white ewe in a stall suspecting she would deliver soon.

The calm white ewe delivered a large signal lamb around dinner time and we noticed that the skittish white ewe had rejected her other lamb. Every time the other lamb would try to nurse the ewe would run circles in the pen preventing the lamb from nursing. Her reaction was also preventing her other lamb from being able to nurse. Since we really had nothing too loose we moved the rejected lamb into the pen with the calm white ewe that had been nursing it at lunch time; the calm white ewe immediately started mothering and nursing her adopted lamb (we are certain she did not deliver this lamb). The behavior of the skittish ewe (rejecting her own healthy lamb and being very difficult to manage) has gotten her put on the cull list.

Normally, I would have more videos but the camera in my phone no longer consistently focuses. I've attempted to record the older lambs starting to play together on rocks in our field. :(

Mar 15: 3 sets of twins and 1 single (final tally for the day)
Mar 16: 4 sets of twins
Mar 17: 1 set of twins (as of 8am)

59 ewes have lambed
105 live lambs
4 dead lambs

We didn't have an accurate count of ewes bred because we made some last minute changes (breeding a couple of ewes we were going to keep for training the dogs and adding a few yearlings we were going to take to auction). Based upon what we see in our flock we believe there is only one pregnant ewe remaining. It's hard to know just by looking because many of the ewes are fat even after delivering lambs; we were feeding grain based upon all the ewes (bred ewes plus 20 or so not bred ewes) even after the not bred ewes were moved to a different field. To know for certain we would need to sort off all the ewes we recorded as having lambs which is more stress on the ewes and lambs than it is worth.

We know based upon when we pulled the rams off their ewes and the gestation period for sheep (5months) the month of March is when they would deliver. Based upon when we have been getting lambs we know that the rams "got busy" the first 2 weeks they were with their ewes.