Last of the Lambs

Frost delivered the last of our lambs for this year. The little guy in the photo by himself is taking his first nap after filling his belly for the first time. The other photo shows mom with her ewe lamb. I think both of these lambs are white but the ram lamb has a lot of tan pigment in his wool (the name of this pigment escapes me and I don't have time to look it up now). He could be a spotted moorit, though. We'll know for sure when he's completely dry.

2006 Lamb Count
10 lambs from 5 ewes (200%)
6 ewes - 4 rams

We learned an important lesson from this year's lambing season - Don't let the ewes get fat during gestation! Out of the ten lambs that were born here, I assisted with six. A couple times I just had to stretch the ewe's vulva but at least four of the lambs had to be pulled and two of those were difficult. The lambs were probably above average in size (note to self: buy a scale before next year at this time) and a couple had pretty good-sized horn buds. The primary cause of this, though, was fat ewes. We didn't have lambs last spring so the ewes didn't lactate last summer. Add to this the alfalfa hay we fed this winter and you end up with overweight sheep. I calculated weights of between 160 and 168 pounds after shearing this spring.

I'm not certain that my assistance with these births was absolutely necessary but I'm sure in most of the cases it made the difference between a vigorous lamb with dry lungs and a weak lamb with fluid in the lungs. Next year, we will buy hay with more grass and less alfalfa. Not to mention we will be feeding much less hay because of the good quality pasture we will have stockpiled going into fall.