This weekend some time had to be devoted to the sheep. The ewes have finally started to have lambs on a regular basis. We had ordered four more portable panels and they came. They come in two feet sections and have to be assembled. I put them all together on Friday. I had to go into town and get more grain for the ewes and mothers. We have been feeding them up for the last month. They had started to get skinny. So when I went out Saturday morning to check on the sheep I rearranged panels and built a couple more jugs. The jugs needed fresh bedding and feed buckets and water buckets filled. The mother/lamb area needed to be expanded also, by the time I was done two hours had passed.
- Date of update- Feb 20, 2023
- # of Lambs born – 35
- # of ewes who have delivered babies – 21
- # of ewes still pregnant – 23 in area, I don’t think they are all pregnant
- # of single lamb births – 8
- # of twin lamb births – 12
- # of triplet lamb births – 1
- # tagged male (weathers-neutered) lambs-11
- # tagged female lambs-9
- # of bummer lambs – 2
- # of lambs who died in first two weeks – 1
- Total # of lambs on farm -32
- % birthing rate- 166%
- % production rate -152%
- % survival rate at birth – 100%
- % survival rate at 2 weeks (bummers count as death as they need help and leave the farm) – 91%
We have a single lamb from one mother who makes the weirdest noise, it sounds like a cat! I tagged and banded him today and when I picked him up his rib cage is narrow and big. It is not the correct shape. We will be watching boy # 347 to see if he survives. The sheep are now at the annoying stage, they are super friendly and know that you are bringing good treats and they just want to be the first one to get them. We try and usher them gently out of the barn but after five minutes of trying to be gentle and quite we end up hollering at them to get out of the barn and chasing them out. There is only so much patience one can have before you realize that it is getting you nowhere and there are other things that need to be done.
Our spring is running a little muddy so I drove up the pastures to look and see how our pseudo soft spot was doing in field #2. It is pretty boggy and soft, I had to get out of the soft mud so I did not sink the tractor and there is running and standing water. There is one corner of the field that I had not marked out that is really soft. I need to mark it as off limits so in the spring when I need to cut hay I avoid that area.
Stewart Creek Somethings 