I started the last post with a photo of my “lambing board” with two entries. It’s full now…
…and there is overflow onto another board. I have 72 lambs with 3 more ewes to lamb. Celeste lambed this morning.
These lambs are #71 and 72.
Most of the others are in the field.
That’s no lamb. That’s Puddleduck Petra coming to the barn. You can meet these lambs at our spring open house, Meet the Sheep, Saturday, April 4.
I know, how could there be too many lambs? When there are too many it’s hard to get that perfect jumping lamb photo. There is always another lamb in the wrong place. Here are tonight’s attempts. (Thank goodness for digital cameras.)
This one is today’s favorite:
I went to the barn a little after 6 a.m. this morning and found what looked like a dead lamb along with two lambs who were up and nursing. The lamb that was flat out on the ground had membranes over his face and was cold and still. I pulled the membranes off of the nose and surprise! That lamb wasn’t quite dead yet. It made a little sound and started to breath raspilly. (Spellcheck says that’s not a word, but it works for me.)
First, get lamb warm. The heat lamp wasn’t fast enough…
…so I brought it to the house.
After it started to revive I substituted a heating pad for the hot water.
Tube feeding with colostrum was next. Fortunately I had a couple of ounces in the freezer. 
I switched the heating pad from under the lamb to over the lamb while Rusty made sure he didn’t go anywhere.
I carried the whole bundle back to the barn so I could get on with chores. That’s when I set up the heat lamp. I also milked some colostrum out of the mom and tube fed the lamb another few ounces.
It got up before long and now sports the most glamorous in lamb-wear. If a ewe lambs with a single lamb in the next few days I will try to graft this one on. That will be another post.
These are the other two sets of triplets and their moms.
Lambing moved into high gear today. It’s been one ewe a day until now.
The morning started with Ginseng and twins.
Next was Maggie. I pulled twins but one was dead. This one has a long story that I won’t go into now because I still have to go back to the barn. Maggie and the remaining lamb are at the UCD Veterinary Hospital for the night. Maggie was low in potassium and that needs to be dripped in over a 24 hour period.
Esmerelda is a Jacob-BFL cross who is just a year old. She delivered 7.8 and 8.8 pound Jacob-cross lambs. That first lamb was on its feet within 5 minutes.
Foxglove is another Lilac ewe with lilac lambs (although it’s hard to tell when they are wet).This is the kind of lambing I like. Put her in the barn. Go to the house. Come back to the barn and there are lambs nursing. Here is the count so far. By the way the TB means that I’ve banded Tails and given BOSE. Rams and ewes are color coded (blue for boy)
Lambing count so far: 4 sets of twins and 2 sets of triplets. I hope this is not indicative of the rest of lambing season.
After checking Ventura every so often for lambing progress I found her with only a tail hanging out. Not a good sign.
I don’t know any other way to deliver a lamb in that position other than to push it back in and find some feet to pull. This is lamb #1. With lamb #1 at 5 lb 6 oz and in an abnormal presentation that’s an indication that this is a triplet delivery.Lamb #2.Here are all three.
Ventura with all three lambs the next day. They clean up pretty well.
Here is what I found in the barn this morning:Loretta had one small lamb that had obviously been up for awhile and there were multiple fluid filled membranes. Triplets again? Yes.The second two were trying to come at the same time. Match up a head and two feet and pull that one. The next one comes easily.
That third lamb took quite awhile to get going. I let her stay in that sunny spot as long as the sun was there.
Not triplets but three happy Farm Club members and three babies.
What a beautiful weekend we had, although I’d rather be able to say that it’s been raining and cold like winter is supposed to be. I wonder if this is the future. That will take some major adaptation. Regardless, here are photos from warm, sunny Solano County.
I usually don’t put the ewes out on the main pasture until late March when it has dried out. However, this year the water has drained away and I will take advantage of the grass growing now. If it doesn’t rain more this will be it until (and if) we get irrigation water.
Waiting for me to change the fence.Rear view of one of the ewes due to lamb in about 2-1/2 weeks.More rear views. These ewes won’t lamb for a month or more.
Thatch left over from the overgrown dallisgrass last fall. Nothing grows under it–at least not useful for sheep.
This was growing inside that pile.
While walking around the pasture I saw something (rodent) scurry across this obviously well-used path from one clump of grass to the next.
Speaking of rodents this is a view I see every morning when I go in the chicken house. Well, not this exact view. There are always new holes and new piles of dirt. There are only 2 chickens and I think I am feeding a whole colony of rats. I posted this photo on FB and was surprised at the number of responses. The overwhelming suggestion was to get terriers. Three dogs is enough and I won’t get another. If Maggie gets a chance she will kill rodents but she will also kill chickens, which is why they are in the chicken house. Next suggestion was the old-fashioned snap type of trap. I have used those for mice, but for rats it sounds disgusting. I think I will get some though. I tried a sticky trap under that garbage can but they just covered it with dirt. Faulkner. I sent photos to someone who has been asked to supply rams to participate in a Year of the Sheep celebration in San Francisco this week. I suggested Faulkner because he is easy to handle (relatively). They want horned rams so I sent more photos….but probably not with spots. They are still discussing it and I haven’t heard the final word.
Even if the rams don’t get to go to the city, some of them are having fun. It’s time to breed my ewes that will lamb at the State Fair. This is Foley and Isadora yesterday. Today it was Crosby and Clover. 
I hope that this will be one answer to another rodent problem. This is a trial straw bale garden. The gophers have made it impossible to grow anything successfully in this part of the garden. Last summer I put two bales out here and started watering them the way you’re are supposed to. Then I went to Texas to wait for my granddaughter to be born. I gave up the garden idea until now. I have planted lettuce and carrot seeds in this one and chard in another. We’ll see what happens.
I took a quick trip to Sacramento Weavers Open House to pick up the things I had on display there. These are a few of my blankets. This is the first year in many, many years that I did not spend the weekend there demonstrating weaving. It felt odd to show up at the end.
A friend’s purse that uses my horn buttons for the closure and to secure the strap.I tried this AVL loom with the e-lift. One step on the button and the shed changes. No lifting 16 (or in this case 40) shafts with leg power.
I wrote a post about Shearing right afterwards but now I have Farm Club member, Dona’s photos to round it out a bit more or just to give a different perspective. All of these photos are hers.
Farm Club members getting organized on a chilly morning.
Sheep getting organized.
There was a lot of Farm Club help and lots of visitors.
A wonderful thing about Jacob sheep is the variety of fleeces from mostly black…
…to mostly white…
…to some of each.
Gynna was one of our sheep wranglers, feeding sheep to the pen where Stephany had them ready for the shearer.
Alison was at the skirting table all morning teaching FC members and other visitors about evaluating and skirting fleeces.
An important part of any fiber gathering is the food. We wouldn’t want to starve in the three hours it took to shear the sheep. This is the pot of vegetable chili I made and everyone else brought wonderful side dishes.
After shearing we could enjoy lunch. That’s our fabulous shearer, John, on the right. And everyone else are FC members. We missed getting Kathleen and Jackie in the photo. It’s hard to corral this group. (And somehow we missed Rusty. I think he was lying in the sun after a long morning of watching sheep crouched on the concrete floor.)
Amaryllis was grateful to NOT be part of the action.
After shearing there was still time for FC members to do additional fleece shopping…
…and other shopping. 
Lisa was one of many FC members who helped in the shop so that I could spend time in the barn.
. “Is it over?”
Although we had a cold start the weather for Shearing Day turned out great and a lot of people came out to watch and to buy fleeces.
Ewes before shearing. 
Farm Club members handled all the jobs. I don’t have photos of all of them but FC photographer, Dona, will probably have some for me to add to another post. That’s Stephany and Gynna who wrangled sheep all morning. 
Alison and others helped skirt fleeces that people purchased.
Here is a view from above. Carol and Amy are in place to sweep between sheep and to let the shorn sheep out the gate. 
John Sanchez has been our shearer for several years. The fleeces are always beautiful and the sheep look great too. He’s prompt and he’s fast too. He finished everything in 3 hours.
Looking at this photo I wish that I’d done a series of photos of footwear. There are a lot of stylish boots in our Farm Club.
Jackie kept track of names and cards…
…while Mary scooped the fleeces into bags. All Farm Club members rotated tasks and helped all day–answering dozens of questions from visitors and also helping in the shop. Thanks to everyone: Alene, Alison, Amy, Betty, Carol, Dona, Gynna, Jackie, Janis, Joy, Kathleen, Lisa, Mary, Peggy, Polly, and Stephany (and to Judy for joining us).
Jimmy is one of two wethers (castrated male) who was well marked so that the shearer would be told to watch for different parts while shearing off the belly wool.
Amaryllis was probably glad that she wasn’t on the shearing list.
This is what Dan made out of the pressure tank we had to replace a couple of months ago. It provided a welcome place to warm hands. 
Maggie behaved admirably all day.Rusty kept watch.Ginny was in the barn with us but had her own pen to keep her out of trouble.
Bags of fleeces for me to sort through. 
This is how I felt at the end of the day.
Shearing Day is coming up so next weekend and Farm Club members came Saturday to help get things ready. Dona took a lot of great photos and all of these are hers.
There is always barn cleaning.
A break for puppy-time.
After finishing with the barn…
…it was time to preview fleeces. Mary made cards to be put into bags as the sheep are shorn and she recorded which fleeces were reserved by Farm Club members.
.
Maggie watched from above.
Everyone was anxious to get hands-on the fleeces.
This is Isadora and her July lamb, Isabelle. Shearing Day is an Open House so if you’re in the area you are welcome to come. See this link.
This was the fall Farm Day. Usually we would be getting ready for shearing but since I have postponed shearing until January we did other things. Unfortunately Dona wasn’t here because she seems to take most of the photos on Farm Day. We started by gathering up the different groups of sheep. They have been separated into breeding groups and it was time to put all the ewes back together with just one ram. That means that I’ll have just two groups now–the large group with the ram, Ringo, and the non-breeding group (March ewe lambs, State Fair lambs and their moms). There are photos of one group in Rusty’s blog. 
After putting the ewes together the rams also go back together. This is a ram lamb that I kept but didn’t use this year but we took photos so I can register him. Right now the yearling ram, Alex, and the two ram lambs are in a small pen so they can become buddies again–it’s really a matter of working on the hierarchy so when they go out in the larger area they don’t kill each other. There should be no question that the yearling ram will be on top, but the two lambs were duking it out. This guy knows how to use his horns to get his way. We’ll see when they go out who won the second place spot. 
This is the group of ewes waiting to go into a different paddock.
As they turned the corner you could clearly see all the marks from breeding (from the marker the ram wears on his chest). Unfortunately the blue mark on that ewe in the back means that she still is not bred after having been bred twice by Alex. I think were a few other ewes with blue marks tonight. I’m wondering about Alex’s fertility. Normally I’d expect all the ewes to be bred the first time around. I’ll know in the morning.
View Across the Road from my pasture. They are prepping the ground to plant alfalfa.
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