Diary

Scanner's beenRSS feed

Posted: Friday 24 January, 2014

by Rosemary Champion at 7:42pm in Sheep Comments closed

Gillian, our sheep scanner, has been today. She's scanned our sheep every year bar one since 2009 - and she actually remembers things about individuals! She must see thousands of sheep each year - what a woman :-)

I didn't have a good feeling about this - I usually feed some hard feed in the run up to, and during, tupping but I didn't this year. They had a molassed mineral lick from two weeks before Nemo went in.

We had thirteen to the tup. Nellie (aka Big Fat Nellie) is barren; no surprise there, she had twins first year then was barren last year but I decided to give her another try. But of course not raising lambs this year meant she was bigger and fatter - so Nellie will be joining Nemo on the mutton trail :-(

Of the remaining twelve, we have three singles - Jura, Lyra and Niamh. I will probably cull Jura and Lyra (mother and daughter) after weaning as they aren't very prolific but they are also the hardest of our sheep to handle. It's Niamh's third lambing - single and twins previously - so she's OK.

Jinx is expecting twins. This was a surprise. 2014 will be her sixth lambing - she had four single tups then last year, she decided to give a ewe lamb a try and this year, twins!

The one expecting triplets is a second timer who had twins last year. I need to get the 2013 diary down and see when she was tupped in relation to the three expecting singles; if all three lambs are born alive, I intedn to twin one on to one of the ewes with a single. Niamh would be my preferred option, mainly because she's not mental.

The three gimmers are expecting twins, which I prefer as the lambs aren't as big. Our worst problems have arisen from gimmers with big singles.

So, now I need to work out how much feed to order and get that done, ready for the middle of February and work through the diary and see who's supposed to lamb when.

Looking forward to spring now :-)

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