We had some help this morning with the lambs: Gingerman, Mr Rainman and the Lamb Whisperer. The Lamb Whisperer had not been out to the farm before but she fed Francine then caught lambs while I tagged and banded. It took us a couple of hours to tag and banded 59 lambs.
We had to bummer off one very healthy lamb as its mother rejected it. We are continuing to feed Francine morning and night and she must be getting milk from somewhere else because she is only taking a 12 ounce bottle morning and night. The nice thing is she hangs with her mother until the morning or evening feed then she hunts down a human and hollers at them until they feed her. She was so insistent last night that she ended up riding on the tractor with me while her bottle was getting mixed. She just rode in my arms without any difficulties.
One of the lambs had a piece of grass under its eyelid so the Gingerman washed it out and he and Mr Rainman got it out of the lamb’s eye.
We were able to catch lambs in one area of the barn and once tagged/banded they were let loose on the other side of the gate. This kept all the tagged lambs in one area, only a couple got out and back in with the mommas. It went fairly smooth. I was glad we waited as I had two boys that I was almost not able to find both testicles on when banding. I don’t believe I could have done it had they been any younger. By pure happenstance both genders ended up using #431. We use blue tags for boys and some form of pink/red for the girls. This makes it much easier to spot gender when looking at tags. Hard to believe that we have had over 850 lambs since we started raising sheep.
The Lamb Whisperer had done her part and proceeded to head home once she learned that installing the toilet was next on the list.
The stats had to be updated to reflect the number of lambs that have died and been born. Once we counted today it was a lot higher than I anticipated. We only have one lamb left to tag, the one born today. I think there are three more ewes that need to give birth. There is at least one for sure!
- Date of update- April 13, 2025
- # of Lambs born – 68
- # of ewes who have delivered babies – 39
- # of ewes still pregnant – 3, I think
- # of single lamb births – 12
- # of twin lamb births – 25
- # of triplet lamb births – 2
- # tagged male (weathers-neutered) lambs-32
- # tagged female lambs-27
- # of bummer lambs – 2
- # of lambs who died in first two weeks – 6
- Total # of lambs on farm -60
- % birthing rate- 174%
- % production rate -154%
- % survival rate at birth – 100%
- % survival rate at 2 weeks (bummers count as death as they need help and leave the farm) – 88.2%
Stewart Creek Somethings 