Breeding Ewe Flock || AI Straws for Sale || Breeding Rams 2005
VAI Breeding 2005 || Farm Breeding 2005
Spring Farm Notes 2006 ~ April 10 ->
May 27th, Yay! Lambing season is over! I feel like having a party! The BIG downside of the AI work is that the lambing season can REALLY stretch out. But my treasure Athena, BLW-145K, has given me the cutest twins with our Karison, 860R. Thankfully, she is staying close to home with them, as we are still trying to out wait the fox. The lambs get too big to take down and the fox has to move on to something else to feed her kits. Three lambs down, and one with a non-threatening bit to the head, so this family is staying close in the barnyard until they get bigger. The fox would immediately pick them out of the field as the only ones still small enough to catch, and I WOULD REALLY HATE FOR THAT TO HAPPEN!!!!
I'll stop yelling now.
So this is the last entry for the lambing journal! Everyone is sheared and hoof-trimmed, and everyone is done lambing, thank goodness! On to the next thing!
May 18th, Oops, didn't mean to let the journal get so out of date! On May 10th, Serena, 247J had triplets with our Kosturson, 816R. Second triplet had a very difficult breech birth and we lost her, but we still have a white daughter and black son, yay! We have had more tangled births here this year than I can remember, and I am wondering if it is the very mild winter we had. Certainly the hay was the same, and the feeding regimen the same, but the lambs are big and are getting tangled up at the door. sigh.
On May 11th, our long awaited VAI birth with Visir, a beautiful white ewe lamb born to 475M.
May 15th, 194L goes a few days early with 801R and gives us white twins, ewe and ram. I discover that she is a great milker! Calm about being handled, with nice long teats that fit well in the hand, and plenty of milk. On top of all her other great traits, what a thrill! I double check the breeding records for 145K who is now 3 days overdue and not looking likely, and discover that I had missed a rebreeding date with her when I was building my list of due dates, and she is not due until May 28th. Poor girl still has a ways to go.
FINALLY some sun today, maybe tomorrow I can get some pictures to update this page. Hope the sun holds til then!
May 5th, More lambs - almost done! 448M and sire 839R have just had twins, white ram and black gray ewe. Lamb count now is 66 lambs, 37 rams and 29 ewes. Just four ewes left to go, and wouldn't a nice set of ewe lamb twins would be great! Or while I'm making wishes, why not a set of ewe lamb triplets! Or two sets!!
sigh.
We had to put down old Mae this week and I have buried her this morning. Twelve years old, she was blind in both eyes, and her teeth were starting to go. But Mae had still been cheerful about her morning grain and beet pulp, and she kept company with Little Bear all through the winter. She went down last week though, with no signs of getting any younger or any stronger, so we made the decision to put her down. STS-118D, she has been with us a long time. But it is a beautiful sunny day today with white fleecy clouds in a blue sky, and the air temp is cool, a perfect day for the sheep. There is a cluster of yellow butterflies come for the salts in the manure pile, as I drive by with Mae on the tractor heading for the burial ground; a mob of lambs runs by, ignoring their mothers who are yelling out to them, and the spring grass is green and plentiful, so I guess it is a good day to say farewell to an old friend.
May 4th, Finally some more progress! Jessie has given us a nice looking set of twins with ram 839R, black/gray ewe lamb, black/mouflon ram lamb. Sadly, 839R almost certainly does not carry either moorit or spotting or he would have thrown them by now; he certainly has had plenty of chances. But such nice lambs, and a good number of them will carry moorit or spotting, so its all good. Jessie brings us to a total lamb count of 64 lambs, 36 ram lambs, 28 ewe lambs, with only 6 more ewes to go. Actually, Claire unfortunately looks like she may not lamb this spring, so it is probably only 5 more ewes left. Claire had held her AI pregnancy for a long while and then recycled late, but it looks like she did not catch with the cleanup. ;-( Part of the deal with the VAI though, is some of this uncertainty. But oh, the lambs!
May 1st. Maple is bringing us closer to the end of lambing. She has had a whopper of white horned ram lamb, with sire 860R. This makes 62 lambs, but 35 rams, 27 ewes - the girls are falling behind. But only 7 ewes left, and Jessie is due today or tomorrow. Sure could use some sleep!
Using the lull to take some photos. Here is 241J with one of her lambs, and Flash standing guard while her Aegir lambs take their turn in the doghouse.
Little Bear with her newborn ram lamb. The lamb was so startled by the camera that he woke up suddenly and fell right off Mom's back! Wish I had a photo of that!
April 30, 5:50 a.m. Getting closer! Only 8 more ewes to lamb - 722P had one twin born at 5:50 when I came out for the morning check, and the second by 6:15. Jackpot! Black badger ewe, moorit badger ram; sire 815R. Lamb count is 61 lambs, eek! 34 rams, 27 ewes.
722P being a younger ewe, has known Amos most of her life. You can tell she trusts him, as look at this series when Amos really wants to help wash her newborn lamb. The ewes usually never let the dogs near their newborns, but 722P lets Amos help with her first lamb while she tends to her second.
Success!
April 28th, 6:00 p.m. Whew! Little Bear finally decided to lamb. With all my worry and checking and waiting around, she easily lambed during the half hour I went in for supper. Beautiful white ram lamb with Uši. Nice size, nursing well, happy Mom. !!!!! This makes 59 lambs, 33 rams, 26 ewes. Only 9 ewes left to go.
April 27th, Still waiting for Little Bear...... But in the meantime, 241J had beautiful twins with Socks, 007J, around 10:00 a.m, ram and ewe. These are Socks' last lambs so one will stay.
3:00 p.m., 454M adds to our population of ram lambs, but they're beauties. Sire 762P, a black/gray and a spotted moorit - yay! photos tomorrow; count is 58 lambs, 32 rams, 26 ewes.
April 26th, The day off from lambing apparently. Waiting for Little Bear to lamb; she's nine years old this year and I'm worried about how she's doing. I'll feel better once she's safely lambed out. But a few photos at sunrise:
Marco guarding the young families.
The families enjoying the dirt pile. 195L, our first ewe to lamb, is really shedding out. By the time we shear in early May, she'll be done.
April 25th, Waiting for Little Bear to lamb, so of course everyone else is lambing! ChubChub continued the VAI trend of singles, but what a single! Big, beautiful, fleecy white ewe lamb with Dimon. She was born around noon, then at 4:00 601N had a very flashy black gray ewe and white ram with Preston, 801R, and at bedtime 434K had twin rams with Rektor son 762P, solid black and black spot. Busy day! Count so far, 54 lambs, 29 rams, 25 ewes.
April 24th, The yearling ewes are finished lambing! Hazel, 869R, has a big, beautiful black gray ewe lamb with ram 839R. He has given us so many nice lambs. The yearlings did really well for us this year. Of 14 exposed ewe lambs, one decided not to breed, one miscarried, three had nice, fat singles, and nine yearlings had twins - wow! Lamb count to date, 49 lambs, 26 rams, 23 ewes.
April 23rd, The day of the wedding. Paul and Erin are safely married and off on their honeymoon, and all was quiet in the lambing barn so I could enjoy the day. !!!!!
April 22nd, 6:00 a.m. Sadness. Long awaited delivery ends in a large stillborn ram. 617N, bred to Erpur - enormous lamb, just couldn't get out alive. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Lambing season is such a contrast of painful disappointments and happy events. 452M decided to go a day or two early so I can get to that wedding without worrying, and had two, handsome, stocky ram lambs with sire 815R. The moorit badgerface I had been hoping for, to keep for our own breeding flock, plus a solid moorit twin. Beautiful. Some linebreeding to our treasured Solee as she is the great-grandmama on both sides of their family tree. Mom is a Serkur triplet out of Solee daughter 47G, and dad is a Little Bear triplet from sire 641N, one of Solee's last twins. Sometimes you make a plan and it actually works out!
Off to the wedding, our farm helper will stop by later to check that no one is giving birth without me.
Lamb count so far, 48 lambs, 26 rams, 22 ewes. I'd be upset about adding two rams to the total, but they are just too good.
April 21st Red's Rektor daughter from last year, 810R, has done her best to help balance the ram/ewe ratio. Twin ewe lambs born to 860R, our Kari son. He's white carrying solid and moorit, she's black solid carrying moorit, and we have a white ewe lamb, and a moorit. But a little small! Both up and nursing when I came out for the first morning check, but whew! A great example of the variation you get the first year with yearlings. 810R loves both her lambs and is tending them assiduously. So I'm telling myself I shouldn't worry as sometimes the smallest lambs grow the fastest. Worst case scenario; I'll hold them back from breeding the first year and let them grow up. They're cuties!
11:30 a.m. Well, today is a bumper crop kind of a day. I'm supposed to be driving around doing errands for a family wedding tomorrow, including picking up the gift, but now I see I have three ewes in labor! I've just run in to get a quick snack as it clearly is going to be a busy day.
11:45 a.m. Last one to start and first one to finish, 834R has two twins up and nursing in the time it took me to run in, make a quick cup of tea and eat a few Girl Scout cookies. Black mouflon ram, black gray ram, with sire 839R. They're beauties, and already nursing. Love this ewe!
1:30 p.m. I found out why 866R was having such a slow time. Her birth goop started to look the wrong color, so I did an internal and found that the first twin was dead, and was all folded up, blocking up the door. A bit of a time getting her lined up to come out; it is so hard when there is no muscle tone to push against. Once I got her out, her twin schloushed right out after. The stillborn looked to be a homozygous gray, ;-( and the live twin is a black mouflon ewe; sire 839R. Thankfully, Mom is not distracted or exhausted by her slow labor and is happily mothering her surviving twin. Those snickery sounds while she washes the lamb mean all is well.
3:15 p.m. This has been a very long day. After getting 866R settled with her new lamb, I went to see what was up with my third laboring ewe. Big, horned ram in the birth canal, head only, no feet. And not much room to get my hand past his head. I'm pushing him back down out of the birth canal so I can reach his feet, and Mom is trying to push everybody out. Thankfully, the lamb is still alive as I can feel him move against my hand. ~ Success! First one hoof pulled up and around, and then the other, and even still a tug to get him out! A white horned ram born to ewe 761P and ram 329L, both polled. ??? That horned thing! I go right in for the twin that I could feel pushing in line to get out, and a beautiful white, polled ewe is born. Big lambs, and lively after the milk. Yay!
Lamb count at the end of the day, 7 live lambs born today for a total to date of 46 lambs, and the ewe lambs catch up some ground, with 24 rams, 22 ewes.
April 20th Whew! 613N has finally decided to lamb. Two white rams born to 801R at 1:00 p.m., big lambs! That Preston is giving me big, stocky lambs! But it is starting to definitely look like a ram trend; 39 lambs, 21 rams, 18 ewes.
Used some of my downtime to take photos: 926S born to ewe 840R, and 907S born to 642N and Grimur.
This little one has found the coveted doghouse empty and is taking his turn, and our little Skumur son is out for his first walk.
Amos is out with the new families, keeping them safe from the foxes.
Little Red with her Langidalur twins.
April 19th, Waiting for 608N and 613N to lamb, and at 4:45 I'm surprised to find that 726P has lambed with Skumur instead! Single black horned ram, and all legs.
10:30 a.m. Looking for 608N to see if she is going to lamb, I realize she is not in the barnyard. Ahhh! I run out to the marshy pasture that the ewes have access to, convinced I will find her mired in the mud. Instead she is calmly resting under the pines with her fed and washed twins. I love this breed! 608N was bred to 801R and has two white rams. So far, 37 lambs, 19 rams, 18 ewes. I hope this isn't a ram trend!
April 18th 482M was teasing us all day, was she lambing or wasn't she? Did an internal at 11:00 a.m., and the cervix was open and a lamb just approaching the birth canal. But by 5:00 p.m., no lambs yet, and seemingly not much for real labor, so did another internal only to find that the first lamb was trying to birth tail first. No legs even to grab hold of to birth the lamb, and with a now-dead lamb blocking the door, it was close for the next two. Just couldn't sort out that lamb to get her out so her siblings could be born! Finally a stroke of luck and the first swooshed out; I then plucked out lambs two and three. The stillborn was a white ewe, then a black ewe with some interesting flashing, and then a spotted black ram. Mom, although tired, got right up and mothered those lambs. Sire of the triplets is Preston, 801R. 34 (live) lambs, 16 rams, 18 ewes.
April 17th, A day off from lambing today, so we raked the whole lawn instead. Patriot's Day and the Red Sox are on the radio while we work. A big lawn, but we got it all done for the year, whew!
April 16th, Easter! Greeted with duck eggs on the front walk, and a lamb in the barn. Clearly the Easter Bunny has come! My beautiful Silky, 821R has a black mouflon ewe lamb with 839R, and she's a big lamb!
5:30 p.m. We have a visitor for the day, and she was happy to witness a birth on Easter! 807R had a VERY large single white ram with 801R, Preston, our star from the Rhinebeck show last October. He was a bit of a squeeze, and it reminds me of the challenge of breeding yearlings. Sometimes the twins are too small, but if you feed for twins, particularly with grain, then sometimes the singles are too big. But this little ram is doing fine, and our friend Kathleen was happy to be here for his birth. So far, 32 lambs, 15 rams, 17 ewes.
April 15th, Well, our luck with the yearlings had to run out sometime. 813R lost her pregnancy this morning to a miscarriage. The lamb was fully formed, but about 8-9 days early, so she was too little to make it. ;-( We all know that dead lambs happen sometimes, but it is always still sad. On the upside, the farm bred ewes are starting to lamb, and we had a beautiful set of boy/girl twins born to 733P and our treasure "Preston", 801R. It's raining today so the lambs are a little muddy, but warm and fed, and nestled up against Mom.
30 lambs so far, 14 rams, 16 ewes.
April 14th Another great set of twins to a yearling! I have to confess to being a bit confounded as to why the yearlings are all twinning, but I'm not complaining! As of today, 7 yearlings have lambed, and 7 have twinned. !!!! 840R had boy/girl white twins with our badgerface ram, 815R. He is a triplet that has since moved to another farm as a breeder, but we were able to use him on some of our horned ewes before he left. I'm really hoping for some badger lambs out of him, as that is our rarest pattern right now. And badgerface fleeces are so beautiful! Sometimes with that smoky gray undercoat, and the oatmeal with accents of moorit or black.... There are some more pregnancies coming with 815R as the sire, so hopefully there is a badger lamb out there somewhere!
An amazingly beautiful, sunny day, and all the animals are basking. Even the ducks, who apparently have decided that the time is right to start their nest in the flower garden. They have been coming up to the house every morning, to inspect the garden. Have the plants starting growing for their nest camouflage yet? They don't want to wait any longer it seems, and have chosen a spot under the evergreens. Someone didn't quite make it to the nest though, and left us an Easter gift on the front walk!
One of the drakes, waiting for the female duck to lay her egg.
The nest will be on its own until tomorrow.
Today's count, 28 lambs, 13 rams, 15 ewes.
Little Red has decided that the doghouse is a safe place for her lambs. Either with her bunking in with them, or standing guard at the door. Good thing the dogs don't like their house!
April 13th The yearling twin fest continues! 832R has wonderful, evenly matched twins with 839R, boy, girl, both white. And a great set of twins with Kunningi! 118K gave us a boy/girl set, both white. Kunningi is homozygous white, so we were expecting that. This is our last AI birth for about a week, when they will start again. In the meantime, the farm bred ewes will start in earnest in the next day or two.
26 lambs is our count today, and the ewes are pulling ahead again at 12 rams and 14 ewes. yay!
April 12 Busy day today with lambs and an early start for the shepherd, but Rascal our barn cat is here to help.
Some great AI lambs! Shannon, 100K had a black ewe lamb with Rektor; Red, 858G had twins with Thokki, white ram and moorit ewe, and Libby, 614N had a white ewe lamb with Loši. Our singles with the AI continue; you can be sure I will remember to warm the pipette next AI season! And thankfully our good fortunes with color continue as well. Loši is homozygous white, so no surprise to get a white lamb from him. But 614N carries gray, moorit and spotting, so hopefully her daughter has inherited some of Mom's color. And Red's lambs are great! She's pretty blind by now with cataracts, but her lambs haven't suffered a bit; big and stocky! But both look to be horned, particularly the ram lamb, even though Red and Thokki are both polled. ???? One of the continuing mysteries of this breed.
22 lambs so far, and the sexes are tied at 11 each.
April 11, I just heard from Gušmunšur Jóhannesson from SouthAgri that the description of Muli as a homozygous white was only a best guess, so our solid moorit ewe lamb lets them know that he does carry solid pattern. What a wonderful surprise to get a colored lamb out of what we thought was a homozygous white AI ram!
Our surprising lambing fortunes continue with two more yearlings that have twinned. So far, five yearlings have lambed and all five have twinned! What an unusual year for us. The high rate of singles born to the VAI has been disappointing, although not particularly unexpected, but then we are getting all these twins born to the yearlings. And lots of color! 837R, our other Serena yearling, just had black gray twins, and 831R our Socks daughter, just had black mouflon twins, all sired by 839R.
8:00 p.m. Magdalena, one of our most friendly ewes, has been digging in the bedding for a while. Finally a nose and toes arrive, and whew! It's a big one! I have been feeding for twins all winter, and then these VAI singles, and they are pretty big! But with a bit of help to get the skin up over the enormous horn buds, a beautiful black gray Grimur son arrives in the world. Big! He looks like he was born at three weeks old! Our strange and wonderful lambing season is continuing. Always sad to get a single out of a mature ewe, but Žorsteinn Ólafsson, our VAI teacher and mentor, reminds me that VAI with frozen semen has a strong, depressing effect on fertility rate. Understandable, but I just hate to see my adult girls "ruin" their fertility record with a single. But not complaining, as this breeding was between two white parents, and I get a black gray lamb!
18 lambs so far, 8 ewes, 10 rams.
April 10th 1:00 p. m. A beautiful sunny day, and the lambs are taking naps in the sun, although some of them have found some safer, out of the way places to snooze.
Our old dog Marco still likes to
guard on a sunny day: 
Still lots of ewes to lamb in the next day or so! This ewe is enjoying the sun while she waits.
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