April 2024 Farmstead Update
Happy April everyone! Holy Moly was March a whirlwind month! In my March update I told you guys about my first ewe Shorty, kicking off lambing season with a set of triplets. Following her I had a set of twins. Since then I have had four more ewes lamb, two singles and two more sets of twins. I also brought home SEVEN more ewes!
Current sheep counts: 16 ewes, 1 ram, 1 yearling wether, 3 ram lambs and 8 ewe lambs! That leaves me with 10 ewes left to lamb if everyone is bred, which other than one small ewe I am pretty sure they all are.
After the first set of twins I had my first single. It’s so silly, I feel like I started backwards. First triplets, then twins, then a single. Anyway! When I found a single lamb out in the barn I jumped at the chance to graft my bum lamb onto the ewe. It was a bit of an adventure but after some struggles, I was finally successful. If you’d like to hear more about it, you can watch my video here.
I had about a two week break and then my milk cow finally calved. The expensive sexed semen I used produced a BIG, BEAUTIFUL…BULL!! I need to stop spending the extra money to get sexed semen because I have ended up with more bulls than heifers. Anyone else? Or is it just me? Please say it isn’t just me. Oh well, he’ll be good eating in a year or two.
The day after my calf arrived I had my first yearling ewe lamb. A big beautiful black ewe with a big beautiful bag. She gave me a whopping ELEVEN POUND ewe lamb. She did end up needing just a touch of assistance. I gave her her space as long as I could, but when I went to check her I noticed the lambs tongue hanging out (If you leave them too long they swell and then they have a difficult time trying to nurse with a swollen tongue) so I decided to intervene. I grabbed the lambs front feet and gently pulled with the ewes contractions. She didn’t need much and the lamb slipped right out.
At first, she just sat there and stared at the lamb. She wouldn’t move, she wouldn’t lick the lamb or talk to the lamb. I left the pen and nervously watched from afar. Was she going to be a good mom? It wasn’t looking likely, but I knew if I intervened too soon that wouldn’t help anyone so I IMPATIENTLY waited.
After what felt like FOREVER she finally came to her senses and got to work licking the lamb. She has been a fantastic mother ever since. I think what really helped is her lamb is a little firecracker. She was almost immediately standing up as soon as she left the womb and started yelling for her momma to get over there and feed her.
I have been milking this ewe and it is going well I think, for a first timer. She has her little fits here and there but don’t we all? And I am so excited about her udder and teats! She has excellent hand milking teats like a goat or a cow!
On the 30th I had two more ewes lamb. Another black yearling gave me a set of ewe lamb twins. So many ewe lambs, yay! A three year old gave me a set of ram lambs.
The three year old gave me some drama. Her boys were born with no problems and seemed to be doing well. The next morning after I finished milking, I found one of them almost completely unresponsive. I slipped the little guy into my vest and rushed him to the house to warm him up. I put him in a box in front of the woodstove and got the fire raging. I took his temp; 97.5, he is hypothermic. I threw a towel over the top of his box to help keep the heat in and fired up the old hair blow dryer.
It didn’t take long and he finally warmed up, jumped to his feet and started crying for something to eat. Luckily I had milked his momma that morning so I had some of her milk handy. I put a couple ounces in a bottle and he ate them all. Hallelujah, he was going to be ok!
Joyous, I headed back out to the barn with him to return him to his mother. Unfortunately, it wasn’t smooth sailing from there. For the next two days I had to help him nurse or give him a bottle. I’m not sure what happened, but he could NOT figure out how to nurse from the ewe.
On the third day I told my husband, “If he doesn’t figure it out today, I’m going to have to bum him.” In a fit of brilliance, I decided to try putting a little bit of molasses on the ewes teat. After that I stuck the lambs nose right in front of the teat, and smelling the molasses, he latched on. I waited there in the jug and watched him latch onto the teat two more times before being satisfied that he finally figured it out. I haven’t had any problems since!
So the weeks in between have been filled with milking ewes, milking the cow, starting seeds and of course all of the normal day to day stuff. That pretty much sums up March! I can’t wait to fill you in on April, hopefully we’ll have more babies!
