Today I got to take a bath-- and clean a few places-- house, barn, porch--and bake bread--
because only one ewe lambed this morning, and the orphan babies can be left unattended for hours at a time now.
They went out to live in the barn on Sunday night.
The weekend went like this: the little, cold, Finn ewe lamb found 6pm Saturday, nursed through the night, died Sunday a.m. Howard gave her a grave in the pines, and we were all sad.
Also on Sunday a.m., we noticed that Catnip the friendly HST ewe (pictured a few blog posts ago, standing on Howard in the pasture)had hidden away at pen-in time the night before so she could lamb in private, elsewhere. She delivered two little brown ewes all by herself and we brought them to a lambing jug.
So we were down one ewe lamb, up two more. These two ewes are out of my smooth- polled ram, Kimberwood Leonardo.
On Monday, Minwawe Chicklet, the gray flecket, lambed a brown ram and a black ewe out of my LRO Shawn, the scurred mioget with beautiful wool.
So these babies begin the new wave of breeding at Little Red Oak: toward polled rams.
Tuesday morning, LRO April presented two brown ram lambs, also out of Leonardo. We can see what their horns or foreheads look like in coming weeks--
No more babies today, so I got caught up somewhat.
I sat in the barn for hours this morning, letting the orphan babies play all around, and I let Catnip and her babes out of the lambing jug.
Orphan Lily tried to play with Catnip's lambs but was not appreciated by their mother. She persists, though.
They'll be running together by tomorrow, I predict.
And about 3 more ewes will lamb within 48 hours.
6 comments:
Congratulations Gail, sounds like things are really popping for you now! Sorry about the little Finn lamb. My lambing this year is going to drag out into June.
I too am sorry to hear you lost your little Finn lamb. But glad to hear that your finding the time to enjoy the babies!
Good luck in your new breeding focus!
I'm sorry to hear about the Finn lamb...are you expecting any more Finns? Congrats on the Shetlands! We stiillll haven't started lambing...
Thanks you guys. I only have one other finn ewe, Mari, who appears to be p.g. with twins or triplets.
You know, they can breed 3 times in 2 years, so I may re-breed Lassi, the one whose lamb we lost.
It will be nice to see and compare ram lambs via blog; no one around here but me is breeding for polled. I'm pretty sure I have three half-poll ram lambs and one fully horned boy; sure wish there was a way to tell what the ewe lambs are hiding!
Gail sorry to hear about the little one.
I'm so grateful we have another poll breeder here in the Midwest.
Michelle I can't feel a difference in the noggins of hornless or suspect poll carrier girls.
I felt two year old Adriana's head last night, bone knobs! I could have sworn she didn't have them last year. Makes the guessing game worse on the ewes. I guess we'll just have to keep breeding, retaining suspect ewes, and have lots of patience.
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