Category Archives: Lambing

More Lambs…and other stuff

Posted on by
2
Jacob ewe with two newborn lambs, still not cleaned off.

Madelyn with newborn twins.

Two Jacob lambs, a few days old.

Lambs belonging to Rose and Sandie.

Lisa spent a couple of days in the area…

…and she brought some friends out to see the lambs.

These are the quads. I am bottle feeding the smallest black one. She is not as vigorous as the others and isn’t able to compete for milk. Besides I think she has something else wrong with her, but I’ll keep feeding her to see how she develops.

Storm and triplets. Storm is a Jacob/BFL (Bluefaced Leicester) cross, bred back to a BFL.

Tranquility’s triplets.

Zora’s triplets. I asked the question earlier of “how many lambs can you fit in a tub?’ The answer is three.

If it seems as though there are a lot of triplets this year, that’s because there are six sets so far. I looked back in some of my Lambing Journals, the document I keep up with daily so I can share with Farm Club. I didn’t tally the stats most years, but for those I did I came up with: 8 sets in 2024, 7 sets in 2022, 2 sets in 2019, and 8 sets in 2017.

Fresh pasture this morning.

Back to the loom. This has nothing to do with sheep or wool, but I am starting to panic because I have a show at the Artery in May and I’m trying to get some new things woven. This is 10/2 cotton, much finer than the wool I usually weave.

Screenshot

And speaking of sheep, do any of you play Wordle? I just started at the end of January and am now on a 49 day streak that I don’t want to end. This one was relevant.

It’s Lambing Season

Posted on by
1

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.

Spotted Jacob ewe starting to lamb.

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

Jacob ewe in straw with two newborn lambs.

Twins.

Jacob ewe with lamb nursing.

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.

Large black ewe in green pasture, showing huge belly and udder.

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.

Big black ewe with newborn white lamb.

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.

Black lamb with a white feather on its head.

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

Big black ewe lying down with newborn lambs, two black and one white.

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.

Black ewe lying in straw with four newborn lambs.

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

Two Jacob ewes lying down in a barn.

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.

Lambing, the End (Almost)

Posted on by
1

I have lamb photos to share but not necessarily in order because I didn’t keep up as lambing progressed.

The last lambs of Lambing Season, Part 1, were born two days ago, March 31. Part 1? That’s another story, but there may be four ewes due to lamb at the end of April. This is Tamara with two ewe lambs, #2553 and 2554.

Bide a wee Trista lambed March 28 with triplets.

This photos was taken three days BEFORE lambing. Trista certainly carried that twenty pounds of lambs low. She is getting grain now to help her put some weight back on and supply enough milk.

This is lamb #2545 born to SilverRain March 21. Lambing had slowed down at that point.

The lambing board shows that there was a lot of action for about a week and then days between the later lambs. My granddaughter made the notes on the board before she left on March 25.

Sweetgrass Tranquility had triplet ewes March 19.

My grandkids were here for a week and shared bottle feeding Sparky. This is 8-year-old Kasen.

I was able to finish skirting and sorting the Jacob wool be the time lambing was over. This wool is now at the mill and hopefully I’ll have some of it back by the fall.

Lambing 2025

Posted on by
1

I’m 9 days into lambing and haven’t had a chance to share any of it. Here is Day 1 on March 6.

There was a field trip from a Waldorf school in the morning. I had told them that I couldn’t promise lambs, but maybe there would be some. There were not. However, they had plenty of time to pet sheep. Notice Jade enjoying the attention.

I had a tax appointment after the kids left and when I got back I found Addy with triplets.

After I brought them into the barn the first order of business was to erase last year’s Lambing Board. This shows 88 lambs from January 25 through March 7 plus other notes squeezed in. So we ended lambing last year at the same time we’re starting this year. That was partly because we wanted to take a trip to Texas to see the grandkids and the eclipse in April. I didn’t want to have lambs coming if we were not here. This year I’m back to a more normal schedule.

Cashew lambed the following day. There were no lambs the day after that. A slow start.

Triple Trouble

Posted on by
Reply

I wrote last time about Seeing Triple and all the triplets that have been born. Eilwen was the last one in that post, but early the next morning Honey had her lambs–more triplets.

When I went to the barn I saw the moon setting in the west…

…and the sun rising in the east.

Here is what I saw in the barn. I had put Honey in the night before because she was desperately trying to claim the lambs of the ewe that had just lambed when I was at the barn around midnight. Now she had her own brood. This is the sixth set of triplets. That’s too many, especially for this ewe who had mastitis last year. I thought it had been resolved enough for her to have lambs again. I was wrong.

The lambs had figured out that they were getting milk from only one side. A ewe can nurse a single lamb one one side, and maybe twins, but it’s asking way too much to raise triplets that way. Its important for the lambs to get colostrum during the first day, so I made sure that they all took turns nursing through the day, but I started to supplement that night.

Jannie lambed later that day with twins.

This is Coco with 10-day old twins. Yesterday I found Coco less responsive than normal. She is not one of the tame sheep and she wouldn’t get up when I wanted her to move. The lambs were trying to nurse while she was lying down. I discussed symptoms with one of the vets at the VMTH (UCDavis Vet Hospital).

No fever and, in fact, lower than normal body temperature, her behavior, and the yellow cast to the sclera led her to think copper toxicity. I have dealt with copper toxicity in the past but not for several years.

I took Coco to the VMTH as soon as I could. This story does not have a happy ending, but this is real life. Coco was euthanized. I know she looks like a normal sheep in this photo, but believe me, her body was shutting down. There is a lot more I could tell you about this — details about copper toxicity in sheep, decisions one has to make about animals whether they are considered livestock or pets, and more. That is what Farm Club is all about. Farm Club members get the behind-the-scenes stories in much more detail than works (or is appropriate for) a blog post. They have had daily updates from the beginning of lambing and have been invited out here to participate as well.

This was the bucket I took to the barn this morning. Two bottles for Coco’s lambs and two bottles for Honey’s lambs. As of the noon feeding I added a fifth bottle. I’ll be feeding four times/day for a couple of weeks I think.

Those are Coco’s lambs on the right. I took two of Honey’s lambs out of her pen this morning. The fact that she didn’t care means she doesn’t feel well. I left one with her but will supplement him.

On the positive side, Jazzie lambed this morning.

The lambing board so far.

Seeing Triple

Posted on by
Reply

Janna had the first set of triplets this year. That was February 9.

Next was Sonata on February 17. Unfortunately the third one died after birth. I thought she was finished with lambs after two. When I came back the third was there with membranes on its face. It may have been that Sonata didn’t even know she’d had another lamb while she was dealing with the first two.

Later that same day Juniper had triplets.

The following day, February 18, Jade had triplets. By this point lambing was intense. These pens were “overflow” in the alley of the barn. I think that Jade had been in labor since the morning–or at least the early stages–with no progress. In the meantime Quartz, Jade’s daughter in the pen next to her, lambed with her first. I decided to palpate Jade and find out what as going on. I found back legs with one bent at the hock. That lamb was blocking the progress of the others. I pulled that lamb and then a second. I found a third, but couldn’t quite figure out the right orientation and it was in pretty far. I left her alone to see if she would deliver that lamb on her own. Eventually I reached back in and pulled it. That was a difficult pull and I wasn’t sure if I had injured the lamb. It sure took a long time to get going. It eventually came around and now you can tell any difference in it although that night I wasn’t very hopeful. I milked colostrum from the three recent ewes and tube fed the lamb, feeding it three times by the end of the night.

Quartz was having her second lamb, but before she delivered I checked her udder as I always do. One half was hard and I sort of remembered a mastitis issue. There is scar tissue in the udder and the teat is not functional. A ewe could raise two lambs on one side of the udder but it is certainly not ideal. I was also worried about her developing a fresh case of mastitis.

Jasmine was lambing at the same time and the ultrasound had indicated a single lamb.I made the decision to give her one of Quartz’s lambs. The Quartz lamb was already up and had nursed, but was still under an hour old. I made sure that she was “slimed” by the lamb Jasmine had just delivered so that they both smelled the same and needed cleaning. It worked and Jasmine had no problem thinking that both were hers.

Then Jasmine lay down and had a second lamb, or is it a third? In any case, Jasmine is now nursing three lambs.

Jasmine in a stall with her brood a few days later.

Tonight there were more triplets. Eilwen had the first out in the drylot. I had suspected triplets because she was so huge, even though the ultrasound had shown two. This lamb was only 4.6 pounds compared to the average of about 7. That was the first confirmation that I was correct.

Lamb #2.

And a third.

Jade’s lambs look much nicer when all cleaned off.

Today on the Farm – February 21

Posted on by
1

I know it will make me crazy to go back and do other photos out of order, but I’m ready now for today. So I’ll do it this way and include a couple from yesterday as well. Maybe I’ll get to others later because there are stories.

Yesterday Dan decided to take out part of the tree that we think used to stand straight. Ever since that super strong wind last week this tree has looked like it’s tipping more and we’ve known that part of it looks dead. If it went down it could not only take a person with it but it would lift up the corner of the fence. It’s easier to cut down a tree than to replace the fence.

This is one of Trista’s twins born five days ago. The first time he nursed he did it while lying down. Maybe he has decided that is just the way you do things. It works when the sheep has a low hanging udder.

I was in the barn a good part of the day yesterday. I skirted fleeces in between watching ewes lamb. I’ll try to get time to post these.

This morning I knew it was time to rearrange the furniture. As the ewes lamb and I move more ewe/lamb groups out of pens they go on one side. The pregnant ewes stay on the other. It’s the only way I can keep track of who’s next and who may be in labor. There were way too many sheep on one side. It’s mud on the outside of the barn and the pasture has standing water. Until we get some dry days and some more growth they won’t go out there.

Now the ewes and lambs have a much larger space in the barn and outside to the west.

The pregnant ewes (not in this photo) have the space to the left.

In the barn. I ran out of feeders that hang on the panels so Tamara has to share her meal as bedding.

The hens looked like they were dying, but I knew that they were just happy to spread out in the sun.

I moved Amara in last night thinking that she might lamb during the night. Today was the day.

I went to the house for breakfast and to get supplies so that I could work from the barn. I had to prepare for a Zoom meeting for which I didn’t have time last night. This is one of my favorite cups. I bought it at Black Sheep Gathering last year.

My new office set up.

My view from the office.

The result. The second was one of those that may have been just fine if I wasn’t there, but I don’t know. There have been plenty of lambs born with no one around and they are up and nursing when I find them. But so far there have been two that I found dead and had the membranes over the face, one of which was still half in the ewe. This one was born while the ewe was standing and paying attention to the first. It slipped out and landed with the body flopped over the head and fluid all around. I straightened it out and it came to life. I don’t know if it would have before the ewe discovered she had a second.

That’s the day so far. We have 54 lambs and I think I counted 19 ewes to go.

More Watching and Waiting…Who’s Next?

Posted on by
1

I’ll start with pretty lamb pictures and then move on to sheep rears. She last night’s post for an explanation of that.

I just let the ewes and lambs onto green grass.

Janna and triplets born about a week ago.

These are in order of how they exported onto my list. This is Coco, due 2-17. Farm Club members have the list of due dates. These are mostly based on my observations during breeding season and then confirmed (sort of) by ultrasounds in late November.

Oh boy! I just learned how to put two photos side by side here. This is Pecan from front and rear. She is due 2/20.

Sandie doesn’t count for the contest. Notice what’s behind her. But it does show what I mean when I talk about the lambs dropping and leaving a sunken area in front of the hips. Compare her to her sister, Pecan in the photos above. She has lambed between me taking these photos this morning and getting to the house to do this post.

Quartz is due 2/17.

Anise was due 2/14.

Eilwen is due 2/27.

Hallie on the left, due 2/22, and Lavender on the right, due 2/20.

Jade from the side and rear. She is due tomorrow, 2/16.

Trista is due 2/17.

There are plenty of others that I could photograph but these are the sheep that posed properly for photos.

Watching and Waiting

Posted on by
Reply

This is probably the kind of photo you expect to see when people are sharing pictures of sheep. But it’s the other end that I’m watching to try and figure out who is next to lamb. The ewe facing me is Sandie due 2/15 (tomorrow). I took lots of photos earlier to bring back the Lambing Game for Farm Club. That’s where I share photos of sheep (mostly rear ends) and Farm Club members can choose the next to lamb. There may be a prize or the prize may just be bragging rights. But I kept taking photos and either not being able to positively identify the sheep from the wrong end, or that sheep lambed before I had a chance to post photos.

Tranquility was one of those I was going to post. She lambed the morning after I took this photo.

Addy was also on the list. She lambed late in the afternoon after I took this photo, the same day as Tranquility.

I think this is Eilwen because the spots match the last photo here.

The ewe on the right is Foxy who lambed this morning. The photo was taken three days before.

Jade is in the middle. Everyone who has been here knows Jade. She is due 2/16.

At 12 years, Sonata is the oldest ewe here, due on 2/16.

Trista and Eilwen. Trista is due 2/17. Eilwen is due 2/27.

If I have time I may take a new set of photos tomorrow. They should all be taken at the same time to make this game fair.

Today on the Farm

Posted on by
1

I caught the sunrise this morning.

I put this ewe, Sweetgrass Tranquility, in the lambing area the last two nights thinking that she was ready to lamb. Notice the sunken sides. She looked like that yesterday too. This was her official due date based on breeding date. There was still no action.

I did chores and moved ewes and lambs around. This is Meridian Janna with triplets. They moved from the stall where they’d been a few days to the big outdoors. I went to the house to do some computer work. When I came back out Tranquility was straining some, but there was still none of the other obvious signs I expect (mucous, drainage). I gloved up and found a lamb close to being born, but stuck. This could be a long story but I’ll just explain that the lamb was dead and was blocking the exit for the other lambs. When a lamb is dead it is floppy and the legs and head don’t stay in the position necessary for easy lambing.

I pushed that lamb back to where I was able to grab its legs and head and pulled it out. Then I was able to find and pull two live lambs. The meconium staining indicates that the lambs were stressed during the process, but all is well. These lambs were normal size (7+ pounds). I think the first one died at least a few days ago. I have a photo but didn’t think this was the place to share it. 

Here are those two lambs up and looking for something to eat.

Lambing isn’t always a pretty sight.

I spent a couple of hours still in the barn working on fleeces. I have a lot of fleeces to skirt and photograph for sale. I will get some on the website tomorrow.

I took this photo earlier in the morning, before Tranquility lambed. This is the BFL X Jacob ewe, Addy. Those BFLs put on much more weight than the Jacobs with the same feeding regimen–she is a tad heavy and has looked round for days. Later in the day I went out and thought that the lamb(s) had dropped. Her sides were more sunken and I figured that I would put her in the lambing area tonight.

When I went back to the barn about 5:00 I found her with a lamb that was 12.4 pounds! Maybe the vet that reviewed the ultrasound and gave a 1+ result was right and there was only one. (1+ means they confirmed one but didn’t rule out a second.)

When I went back to the barn two hours later here is what I found. This is a 9.6 pound lamb and had already nursed. I wonder if I’ll be surprised when I go back out as soon as I finish this post.

Here is the lambing list so far. We’re off to a much slower start than previous years, but it’s been easier that way. There are a lot more due before the end of the month.

I don’t think it’s spring yet, but it felt like it today when the sun was out!

If you want to see lambing videos check out my YouTube channel. This is Bessie lambing with twins and here is Cashew with twins. These are about 6 minute videos.