Today's lambs

Sorry still no photos. I promise to get them up to you soon!

Tomorrow I start my spring clean ups in earnest. Yes. The day the AI girls are officially due. I still have 7 of 18 that were bred due, so under half. But I still have a lot of ewes left to lamb. i pulled the Shetland rams the day I did AI so all the girls should have a due date no later than tomorrow. So naturally while I'm off working, they'll all be lambing. Joy.

Eliza's boy has pulled through and is jumping and running around his mom in the jug and nursing well. Phew!

FirthofFifth Ashanti (A Forrest daughter) is being borrowed from my good friend Cynthia. Ashanti is 31% UK and was bred to Heights Orion for some moorit based lambs. JACKPOT.

TWIN ewe lambs! The larger 6 pound lamb is solid moorit, the 5 pound sister is a solid moorit with the most stunning krunet I've seen. It reminds me of the white spot on black headed Holstein calf. I promise photos. Their fleeces are quite nice. I think this cross was a huge success. And both girls! I am so happy. Thank you Cynthia for letting me borrow her :)

Justalit'l Black Lambo (Bramble Dixen daughter, poll carrier ewe) is 9 years old. She has remained in great condition, pushing her way around at the feeder and aside from a more pendulous udder from 8 years of lambs, she is in great shape.

I fretted over her all afternoon as I was sure she would lamb last night. Uncomfortable and stirring up her jug bedding as if she were part chicken, she really was a sight. I knew something was wrong. Several contractions were so strong they actually knocked her to her knees, or off of her feet. No water bag. no feet. No lamb.

I feared the worst. Was it backwards? Were there two pushing around, jockeying for position? I went to the house to call Stephen. He didn't answer. Hmmm...do I keep waiting? She didn't really SEEM in distress, but she was pawing a lot and getting up and down. And those contractions were really close together.

I gloved and lubed up and palpated her. I couldn't feel anything. No lamb. No water bag. I was up to the pelvic ridge and nothing. I was somewhat relieved I didn't find a tail or something.

I went back to the house to clean up and when I got back outside, no less than 5 minutes, she had an enormous smirslet gray katmoget EWE lamb! Its the bluest katmoget I've ever raised! And big! I could tell that with the size of this lamb, she was done having babes, but what a beautiful lamb!

This puts me at 10 ram lambs and 14 ewe lambs for the purebred Shetlands.

If we are just talking AI lambs, I have 7 rams from AI and 9 ewes. So far. Last year I had only 17 lambs from AI and 14 of them were rams. Yes FOURTEEN. So don't hate on me for all the ewes this year :) I'm glad it is balancing out. I can move forward a lot faster with ewes than I can rams. I'm glad I hung on to the lambs from last year (well most of them) in case this very scenario played out. I should be really set for the next few years.

Photos . Yes. Soon.

Back to the barn and then a quick nap