Tuesday evening Meghan and I went to our local airport to pick up two kids she'd bought from Twincreeks Farm in Texas. The kids arrived on time, but it took a bit for them to unload all the baggage, so we didn't make it home and get them fed and bedded down until around 11 p.m. These kids are both from CH lines and striking to look at--I promise I'll get around to taking photos soon.
So Wednesday morning I dragged myself out of bed about two hours later than normal(7 a.m.), started a fire, drank some tea and went out to feed everyone. The numbers are climbing and I believe we are up to around 52 different animals on the homestead. I begin with the smaller barns south of the house where the more mature ewes and Meghan's goats are housed. Then up the hill and back to the largest barn where the main sheep flock and lambs from last year are bedded down. Just as I was passing the windows of the main barn I heard a lamb call. We don't get lambs in mid-March and had seen no breeding activity, so I started to make a mental list of which ewes were due the end of the month thinking perhaps we had premature lambs?
Turns out one of Meg's youngest ewes decided to sneak in a heat cycle way before anyone else and had dropped a lovely tiny ewe lamb sometime in the wee hours of the morning. The ewe was being a very attentive mom. And the lamb although very small is exquisitely made, vigorous and healthy. So we put up a jug and got them settled in for the day, let the rest of the flock out into the paddocks to eat their hay and tried to regain our composure.
It helped that the day was sunny and warm, so we could spend part of it outside with the new kids dancing on the snow.
Will take photos of everyone soon. In another two weeks we've got a number of ewes due to lamb, so the party's just starting.
So Wednesday morning I dragged myself out of bed about two hours later than normal(7 a.m.), started a fire, drank some tea and went out to feed everyone. The numbers are climbing and I believe we are up to around 52 different animals on the homestead. I begin with the smaller barns south of the house where the more mature ewes and Meghan's goats are housed. Then up the hill and back to the largest barn where the main sheep flock and lambs from last year are bedded down. Just as I was passing the windows of the main barn I heard a lamb call. We don't get lambs in mid-March and had seen no breeding activity, so I started to make a mental list of which ewes were due the end of the month thinking perhaps we had premature lambs?
Turns out one of Meg's youngest ewes decided to sneak in a heat cycle way before anyone else and had dropped a lovely tiny ewe lamb sometime in the wee hours of the morning. The ewe was being a very attentive mom. And the lamb although very small is exquisitely made, vigorous and healthy. So we put up a jug and got them settled in for the day, let the rest of the flock out into the paddocks to eat their hay and tried to regain our composure.
It helped that the day was sunny and warm, so we could spend part of it outside with the new kids dancing on the snow.
Will take photos of everyone soon. In another two weeks we've got a number of ewes due to lamb, so the party's just starting.
2 comments:
Hey! I'm starting to get REAL impatient about the lack of those promised photos! :-) (Can you tell I'm suffering from "lack of lamb" at Boulderneigh?)
Hi Michelle--Sorry it took so long but we had yet another major snow "event" up here and were snowed in--literally--for almost a week. Four feet or more fell and we had almost melted down to the ground in most areas, so it was a bit mindnumbing. Hope you enjoy all the photos.
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