Lambing began Sunday night. The first ewe to lamb had twins, up and nursing when I got to the barn. That is how it is supposed to be. The second was a different story, but maybe that will be a post later. After that it has seemed slow, until yesterday.

This is the first ewe who lambed yesterday, Bideawee Billie Jo.

Twins.

Nothing in the middle of the day but in late afternoon, Beauty started. She ended up with twins, but it took awhile for the second and there was another ewe lambing in between.

Addy is a Jacob-BFL (Bleufaced Leicester) cross. This photo was taken four days ago.

This is not a post-lambing photo. It was taken about three hours before she had the first lamb. Those sunken sides are a sign that the lambs have “dropped” and we’re getting ready for lambing.

Just after Beauty had her first lamb I looked over the fence and saw that Addy had one lamb. It’s not visible in this photo because it’s behind her. It’s black. Jacob sheep are colored sheep with a spotting pattern. When you breed them to most other breeds you get black lambs because the sire doesn’t have that spotting pattern. Addy is a crossbred, bred to another BFL. So genetics are interesting.

Here’s the first lamb adorned with a white feather that looks like a spot.

But there is more! Ultrasound showed twins. I thought that maybe there was another and, sure enough, there was. This one was born hind feet first.

But wait! There’s more! Another hind-feet first delivery. These lambs total 32 pounds!

After I’d made sure that all those lambs had nursed I checked in back before I went to the house for dinner with guests. These two I thought required checking again later. This is part of the pen where I used to keep another ram. I have opened this area to the ewes because I have too many sheep for the barn space. Now it’s another space I need to check.

I did not take photos of these ewes and lambs other than this one that shows why sometimes those ram lambs aren’t delivered quite as easily as the ewe lambs. They end up OK but the ewe may have to do a little more work to deliver one with horn buds like this. Those two ewes had a set of twins each and now I have the lambing pens full and one in overflow pens in the barn alley.

A Farm Club member took a screenshot of her view of my barn camera. I knew I had to spend some time at the computer and figured I’d do it in the barn while waiting for lambs. These are all twins except for Addy at the top corner. It was not a cold day but the bugs were bugging me; therefore, the hood.

Stay tuned for more…if I have time.