I’m probably anthropomorphizing again where I oughtn’t, but the shorn ewes looked particularly put-upon today.
Travels with Musti
Dogs, nature, photography, and the meaning of life, with apologies to J.S.
Posts tagged “twins”
After the recent days’ drama, today I’ll again take refuge in cute lamb photos. This is the last pair of twins born this season, with mom in the background.
Tagged: Barb Eriksson, Bea, blach and white, Border Cheviot, dorper, ewe, Hollow Oak Farm, lambs, north country cheviot, twins
Today the last of the pregnant ewes gave birth to twins. It seemed fitting that my first and last lambs were black.
Now that lambing is over for 2017 (barring mystical events), here’s a first pass at documenting what happened.
- Of my 27 adult ewes and one ewe lamb, 24 gave birth; 4 ewes didn’t get pregnant for some reason.
- 36 lambs were born between 3 February and 20 May, and 30 are still alive.
- There were 2 sets of triplets, 8 sets of twins, and 14 singles, a “lambing rate” of 150% (where 100% is all singles and 200% is all twins). Many shepherds try for a lambing rate of 185%, hoping for as many twins as possible with few or no triplets (who are more likely to die of something or other).
- Of the lambs who died, 2 were eaten by Bravo, 1 died after a complicated labor and C-section, 2 died of hypothermia in a May snowstorm, and one died from a combination of cold and maternal abandonment
- My lambing mortality rate was a bit under 17%, while the national average is about 15%. I think 4 of the deaths (the Bravo victims and the hypothermic twins) were ultimately attributable to my inexperience and bad decisions, so if I were an optimal shepherd, my mortality rate might have been as low as 6%.
- The 6 winter lambs were sired by a Texel ram. Of the 8 lambs whose sex I could identify, 4 were female and 4 were male.
- The spring lambs, sired by my border cheviot ram, were 18 females and 6 males. I’m not sure that either group is large enough to draw any statistically meaningful conclusions, but one tempting explanation is that the ram influences the sex ratio of the offspring. I’m very curious if this is borne out with the cheviot’s offspring next year.
Tagged: black lamb, Border Cheviot, dorper, ewes, Hollow Oak Farm, lambs, last lambs, newborn, north country cheviot, statistics, twins
I was particularly grateful for the border collies when Musti died. They don’t brook any wallowing, always asking “What’s next?”, and they pulled me through a difficult time. It seems that sheep have some of the same world view (I wonder who learned it from whom…). We lost two lambs during the snowstorm on Saturday night, and the forsaken triplet lamb died some time over Sunday night. But this morning, the Katahdins were back at it, with twins and triplets waiting for me in the field first thing.
These triplets are bigger and more vigorous than the previous set, and the ewe seems to be taking good care of all three. The challenge over the next couple of months will be getting her enough food to nurse all of them without her turning into a bag of bones. The safe decision would be to pen her and her lambs and feed her tons of corn every day, but then I’d never find out if she has the genetics to pull of the trick eating just grass. TBC…
Tagged: border collies, cheviot, Hollow Oak Farm, Katahdin, lambs, Musti, pasture lambing, triplets, twins
Two sets of twins were born while I was in Boston today. No complications. I’m becoming a believer in the magic of pasture lambing…
Tagged: Barb Eriksson, easy, ewes, Hollow Oak Farm, lambs, newborn, pasture lambing, twins
This morning brought twins from one of the katahdin ewes, again with no drama. I won’t tempt fate by drawing any conclusions from 2 out of 14 pregnant ewes, but I’m very relieved at the way spring lambing is starting.
And Monday’s ewe and lamb decided to pose…
Tagged: Border Cheviot, ewe, Hollow Oak Farm, Katahdin, lamb, pasture, pasture lambing, Romney, spring, twins
The lactating ewes are unaccountably tolerant of lambs using them as bed, table, climbing structure, or vaulting platform, both with their own lambs and others. Here, Matilda’s ram lamb is having a tête-à-tête with the firstborn ewe lamb, with sis watching on the left side.
And when the big black lamb isn’t negotiating with the Romney twins, she’s now competing with the adults for the morning corn ration.
And they seem to be giving her plenty of room. If the trend continues, she’s going to be a tough gal when she grows up.
Tagged: barn, big black lamb, ewe, Hollow Oak Farm, lambs, Matilda, Romney, sheep, tolerance, twins
I’ve set up an area in the barn that only the lambs can enter so they don’t have to compete with the adult sheep for grain and corn. They’ve started nibbling a bit on the special “Lamb Starter/Grower Mix” that folks advised me to give them, but they seem more interested in the corn and hay that their mothers are eating.
Today I also let the twin lambs join the rest of the group, since they seemed to be settling in to life outside the womb with no complications. Cass and Luc were very curious about the new additions to the flock.
And the lambs had no trouble finding their mother in the crowded barn.
Matilda*, the Romney ewe from my friend Jenny Hughes, bore my first set of live twins this morning.
And the second one…
The obligatory complication was that I found Matilda on her back with her feet in the air minutes after her first lamb was born. In shepherd-speak, this is called a “cast ewe,” roughly translated as “the bloody sheep’s gonna die if you don’t find her and flip her back over.” I did, and she immediately switched into professional mother mode, cleaning and fussing over the crying lamb at her side. I got her and the first lamb into a jug, and the second one was born without any drama about 30 minutes later. All three are doing well this evening.
I’m not sure how the ewe ended up on her back, except that Romneys and other stocky breeds are somewhat prone to this indignity. I’m reluctant to imagine how the day would have turned out if I had not been around to assist her. When Bill Fosher heard about my latest difficulty, he assured me that if sheep were easy, everyone would be raising them.
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*Matilda came with her name. I haven’t named any of the others and probably won’t, but I’m a bit torn about this. On one hand, a name carries the implication of familiarity and respect that I’ve certainly developed with some of the flock. But it deepens the cognitive dissonance when sheep go off to freezer camp.