Blog surfing, Summer lamb tending

Up late again-- having blog fun, other people's links-- I found this one:

http://mabelswish.blogspot.com/

which delighted me with old favorite music, and lots of creativity--so-- I added it to the list at right.

We finished ear tagging and vaccinating lambs yesterday, a marathon with 26  remaining lambs and 16 ewes.   We also hoof trimmed and wormed all the ewes, and called out ear tags to Kelly, the State Scrapie Vet tech who inspects the sheep every year.   I need to remember days like this when I want to keep "just one" lamb from every ewe I have. 
Sheep hoarding.  There's got to be a prescription for that-- or at least, therapy.

Tonight one of my favorite ram lambs ripped off a horn sheath-- I have no idea how, but I suspect it was only a fence accident.  I held him while Emily ran for meds and a snippers to finish the job, and he bled all over me.  Poor boy. 

Rook, after.  Horn stub on right.

Good thing I checked in on the 8 ram lambs who got separated from their moms and sisters yesterday for the first time.  Oh the crying and wailing that went on through the night, Friday night.  The same night that the power went out, so we had to keep windows open for "natural air conditioning". 

All rams, few horns.  LRO Linden's pollie, Aspen, is front and center.  Behind and right is Bluebell's Forrest.  The spotty, behind, is a Finn ram.

Poor Niav, from Sabrina's Boston Lake Farm, only had one boy, her first, her only lamb-- and she grieved all night.  Another yearling ewe, Little Red Oak Linden, was in the same boat, but was not so demonstrative.  Simon is pictured at left, here-- a nice dark brown.  Linden's boy is the pollie musket named Aspen, above.


It's the heart of summer around here.  The mosquitoes are thick and furious, pestering the flock incessantly.  The sheep lay down to keep them from biting their legs-- or is it so that their babies will quit trying to "grab a snack" off the ewes' udders?   The ewes have had about enough of it by now. . . so it's even better that the ram lambs got their own pasture and building.