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VAI Breeding 2005 || Farm Breeding 2005
Spring Farm Notes 2006
March 18 - April 10
(all photos are thumbnails, click to enlarge.)
Spring Farm Notes continued April 10 ->
April 10th, 3:30 a.m. I don't usually do night checks, as I find that my 5:30-6:00 checks usually catch all the action, but I have at least eight ewes due in the next day or so, and I don't want there to be any confusion about which lambs go with which ewe. These are all AI pregnancies due, and I'm on the edge of my seat! Anyway, found Pearl, 416M in labor. Yelling to wake the neighbors, she gave us a solid moorit ewe lamb to Muli. If I weren't so sure of my AI breedings, I would be worried as I think the SouthAgri catalogue lists Muli as homozygous white. But I only used one Muli straw per my records and there is only one in the 2005 AI envelope. She's a big girl and Mom loves her!
10:30 a.m. Little Red, 403M has just had Langidalur twins! Solid black ewe lamb, white ram. Total so far, 14 lambs, 6 rams, 8 ewes. And hopefully more lambs coming today. I love this time of year!!!
We're going to have to call the little Langidalur ram lamb Mr. Frisky, or Mr. Jumpy. After a good belly full of warm milk, he discovered how much fun it is to jump! So these are action photos as I could not get him to stand still for his portrait.
April 9th, 6:30 p.m. Flash, BLW-465M has given birth to two hefty looking Aegir lambs, one ram, one ewe. Maybe my hay rations to the adult ewes were a bit generous, as some of these lambs are big! Not counting, but right now I am at 11 lambs, 5 rams, 6 ewes.
April 7th, 5:45 a.m. Two AI lambings overnight. BLW-642N has a black/gray Grimur son all washed and fed, and BLW-768P, my homozygous moorit gray, has just finished cleaning off a moorit/gray Arfi daughter - yay! We know that Arfi carries solid, spotting and moorit, and my hope against hopes, was for a moorit gray out of this cross.
Our moorit gray
Arfi daughter!!!
This gal is too cute.
April 6, 6:00 a.m. Ack, this waiting between lambings is so hard. Going out to find beautiful lambs in the barn gets really addictive! But finally some more lambs this morning, more twins to a ewe lamb! Mom is BLW-836R and Dad is 839R again. This time he has thrown his gray pattern and we have twin black/gray ewe lambs. Yay! I hate to keep track of the ram/ewe ratio as I can get pretty crazy over it. Sometimes I've had runs of 7 or 8 rams in a row, and then I start to get really edgy. But then there is a mini-run of ewes and it starts to balance out a bit. So usually I try not to keep track too closely and just stay calm about it, but I will say that we have 4 ewes and 3 rams so far. =:-)
photos left to right: One of our drakes resting in the barn, 900S in the mixing pen, one of our Banty roosters discovering the grain pan in the Old Lady Pen, and 836R protecting her newborn twins from the dangerous camera.
April 2, 6:00 p.m. More lambs! This time a ewe lamb, a moorit Kostur daughter, has given me twin white ram lambs. I always worry about yearlings with twins, as sometimes it is challenging for them to keep track of two their first year, but this gal is doing great. Kostur has great daughter scores, +25 in the 2003-2004 catalogue, and if 817R is any indication of how these daughters do, I can see why. She is having no troubles keeping control of two lambs, and in fact is keeping them so close to each other that they ending up sleeping stacked on top of each other like cordwood. She's a little tense about letting anything near them and ended up in an altercation with a rooster that she thought was too close! The sire is a ram from Frelsi Farm, FFC-430R, a Hylur son out of a Sponn daughter, so I will really be watching to see how they grow.
April 2nd, 10:00 a.m. - First VAI lambs! Twins born to an Eir daughter, BLW-195L and AI sire Aladdin. First born, a polled white ram lamb, born head first, no feet. But a quick bit of intervention to get a foot out, and then out he came in a sploush. Followed quickly by his twin sister, a spotted black mouflon. Mom is an old hand and doing great. And big, beautiful lambs!
April 1st - Lambs!!! Our first lambs of the year and Mom is a yearling. I sure do love these yearling Moms! A beautiful black mouflon ewe lamb born to Rektor daughter BLW-809R and ram BLW-839G, (with a stillborn sister who had clearly died inutero). Mom is doing a great job, washed and fed and cared for this lamb as if she were an old hand instead of the ewe lamb she is, who had not yet reached her own first birthday. I sure love this breed! (all photos are thumbnails, click to enlarge.)
March 23rd, Working on vaccinations for the pregnant ewes. As a side effect of the VAI breeding, my lambing season is spread out from April 1st to May 18th; much longer than the 20-25 days you would expect with all natural breeding. To avoid troubles with enterotoxaemia, I am vaccinating the ewes on a rolling basis to account for the long number of weeks from beginning to end. So far, two days of vaccinating done, with probably two more to go. I am aiming for 2-3 weeks prior to lambing, for a ewe's vaccination. Very exciting; the ewes are suddenly drinking more water. A sure sign of late pregnancy when the ewes need more water as they are suddenly making more amniotic fluid - yay!
March 18, 2006
Only 2 weeks until I can expect the first lambs, and I sure wish the weather were warmer! A strange winter for us with wild swings between warm, rainy and foggy, and frigid temperatures with blowing winds, but thankfully the sheep have been just fine. An uneventful winter as the ewes are just eating, and waiting for spring, and growing large bellies! I have put the time to good use, cleaning the barn and skirting up last fall fleeces. I've entered the fleece information on the breeding ewe page for the first time, hoping that this will help in the study of the maternal bloodlines.
Our duck population has been under pressure from what we think is a bobcat. I have moved the farm dogs in an effort to protect the ducks and the hope that we won't lose any more. A sure sign of spring is that the ducks are coming up to the barnyard every morning to lay their eggs - great for waffles and pancakes!
Lambing season will get off to a slow start this year, with just a few births expected in the first week. Not a bad thing as it gives me more time to finish up at work, and get the lambing jugs set up - can't wait!
Spring Farm Notes continued April 10 ->
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