Lamb forecast - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Tuesday 22 January, 2013

by Rosemary at 8:42pm in Sheep 2 comments Comments closed

Well, Gillian, our scanner from Booscan has been today. As usual, she was prompt and efficient and the eleven ewes were scanned in about 20 minutes. She’s got great kit – looks a bit like “Ghostbusters” when she’s all dressed :-)

For the first time, we’ve got empty ewes – two of them. Nova wasn’t really a surprise; she had a C section last year and the vet said she might not conceive again. However, Nellie WAS a surprise. She lambed for the first time last year and had twin tup lambs. She didn’t have a lot of milk though, and we topped the lambs up with a bottle.

Of the other nine, we have six twins and three singles. Of the three carrying singles, Jinx has only ever had single tup lambs – if this one is a tup, it will be her fifth; Jura has had a mix of twins and singles over the last four year, while Lucy is lambing for the third time and is having a single for the first time.

The six expecting twins include our three gimmers, Pixie and Poppy (Juno’s 2011 twins) and Penny (Lucy’s 2011 twin lamb); Juno, who will be having twins for the fifth time; Lyra (Jura’s daughter) and Niamh (Nova’s twin).

So we’re expecting 15 lambs, which is two more than last year, from the same number of in-lamb ewes.

But what to do with Nellie and Nova? There are three options – put them away for slaughter, keep them and give them another try in autumn this year or try and sell them as lawnmowers / pets / fleece sheep.

Both are friendly ewes, Nova especially; they also have nice fleece – Nellie, in particular, has a lovely dark fleece.

Of course, if I was a proper farmer, they’d be away. But I’m not, so the jury is currently out...