Done Lambing.

Our last ewe to lamb, Coconut had twins this morning. This photo was taken about 20 minutes after the white one was born. Both are girls.
All in all, this lambing season has been mixed. We've seen a lot of death. The worst blow was the loss of our ewe, Lambie, on Monday. After a couple days of something being not quite right with her, I left work Monday morning to go home and treat her for milk fever. She was dead when I got there. Here is a photo of one of her twin lambs, Junior. He and his sister, Hershey, are now being bottle-raised.
This is Sonja and her ewe lamb, as yet unnamed. Sonja delivered during the night and when I scooped up what I thought was afterbirth the next day, I realized that she had had twins and only one survived. The dead lamb was still in it's amniotic sac but had been licked clean on the face. I don't know if Sonja started cleaning it off and then got distracted with the delivery of the twin or if she cleaned off the face and the lamb was already dead and didn't respond. She was a first-timer this year.
Here is Bunny and her unnamed ewe lamb. I walked up on Bunny at 5:20 one morning and she had this lamb already standing up and had just delivered another. It took a couple of ragged breaths but didn't make it. I scooped up the afterbirth and realized that a third tiny lamb was there, also dead.
Finally, on Tuesday Ingrid had triplets. It was a very difficult birth that I had to assist with. Two of the lambs were determined to come out at the same time. I had to push one back in and simultaneously pull the other. I still hadn't recovered mentally from Lambie's death the day before and was sure that Ingrid and her lambs were going to die. Well, the first one was delivered barely alive and the second came two front legs first with the head back. I was able to bring the head up in the birth canal and again thought for sure Ingrid wouldn't survive this. The second lamb was born dead. While I was tending to the struggling survivor, Ingrid presented another water bag. This lamb was basically presented correctly but one leg was bent at the knee and had to be straightened. Since this lamb was in an uncorrupted sac, I thought it would live but it was delivered dead. The umbilical attachment had apparently been broken during the preceding commotion. Ingrid and her ewe lamb are alive and well. We treated her with an antibiotic because of the trauma to her vaginal canal and vulva (not to mention my arm being inside her up to my elbow). I don't have a photo yet.

The total count is 9 lambs, 7 ewes and 2 rams.

Lambs arriving daily.

"Lambie" was our first ewe to lamb with twins on Tuesday morning this week. Sonja had a single ewe lamb during the night Tuesday night and early this morning we discovered Frost with twins. At 2 a.m. Jennifer heard a lamb crying and went outside to find that one of Frost's still-wet lambs had slipped between the barn and the wooden fence and was in the yard. When I was getting ready to leave at 5:30 this morning, she had walked under the temporary electric fence and was in the ram pasture crying. It appears we have real live-wire.

Lambie seemed to be having a rejection problem with one of her lambs so we penned her with them yesterday afternoon.

I'll try to get pics this weekend and post them on Monday.

Grazing season begins

I started a slow rotation yesterday. Prior to this, the ewes had access to a large part of the pasture but now they'll be restricted to a smaller area and will be rotated every few days at first. We're expecting the first lambs next week.

We're getting our first batch of broiler chicks next week also. They'll be ready to butcher on Memorial Day which will be a nice kick-off to the barbecue season. The hoophouses need some work to be ready for this grazing season. I'd like to get the laying hens on pasture before the end of this month. They had been in the garden but we moved them so we could begin ground prep.

Asparagus and strawberries went in this week. It's going to be nice to actually live in one place long enough to establish an asparagus bed.

P.S. to Jen P. - Thanks for the comment. If you're reading this email me using the link at the bottom right of this page.

Farm Bill.

From the April 2008 Acres USA "Opinion" column:

Environment is big in the 2008 version of [the Farm Bill], with some $108 million for industrial operations that anoint the countryside with hog and cattle cesspools. Both produce near-worthless protein so riddled with hormones it has already compromised the health of an entire generation. Instead of clamping down on this bad animal husbandry, the purse opens when big business beckons.