We made it home today from visiting family, and found all the newborn lambs were doing well. As the weather was beautiful, we turned all the ewes and lambs loose in the pasture. The one exception is Dot, our leader sheep and queen of the flock. She still hasn't delivered, so I set her up in the lambing stall in the barn. She looks absolutely enormous, and has begun the heavy breathing associated with the beginnings of labor. I'm going to check her frequently tonight, as I doubt she'll still be pregnant in the morning. The kids and I are hoping for quadruplets; if she manages to pull off that feat, she will have "lambed for the cycle" on our farm. (Okay, okay, we're obsessed with baseball around here.) Dot gave us triplets her first year, twins the next, a single the following year, and twins again last year. All we need now is quads.
Even if we "just" get triplets, we'll be looking at an astounding 200% lambing from the flock - by far our best ever. Five of the seven mature ewes have twinned, one has singled, and we're just waiting on Dot.
The two newest lambs are these black twin males from Licorice:
Her sister
Nera (also solid black) produced one black female (with an interesting white spot on top of her head, just like
Nera's sire had) and one male with the wildest markings ever:
Bianca is taking good care of her white male lamb. The black female she rejected is thriving on milk
replacer under Matthew's care, and is not pictured because she's at his farm
(see yesterday's post for details about that story).
Enigma's chocolate male continues to thrive:
As do her daughter Conundrum's twins:
And Maybelle's twins:
2 comments:
Maybe Nera had a fling with a Holstein? I really enjoy your blog. A wonderful combination of farm & faith. Thank you.
Love the Holstein observation. When Enigma is shorn, she looks just like one. Shearing day is this Saturday, and I hope to get some pictures of her posted.
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