Lambing over for 2013 - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Monday 15 April, 2013

by Rosemary at 5:00pm in Sheep 4 comments Comments closed

Well, that’s lambing over for another year. We didn’t see the vet at all this year, which is good. We had a C section and two other visits last year. :-(

We put eight ewes and three gimmers to the tup; of the 11, nine scanned in lamb with six sets of twins and three singles.

And we have fifteen live lambs and nine live ewes, which is a pretty good result. One of the two empty ewes has gone to a pet home – she was the one that had the C section last year – and the other one will get another chance with the tup this autumn. She is currently taking on “auntie” duties.

The lambing pens.

Newborn Ryeland lamb.

Attentive ewe.

Cosy twin lambs.

Found somewhere cosy to sleep!

Of the fifteen lambs, we have seven ewes and eight tups. At the moment, I’m planning to keep four of the ewe lambs and sell three. The tup lambs are all destined for various freezers.

I assisted at two births – one with one leg back and one with both legs back. Once the legs were forward, both lambed easily. The lamb with the one leg back was a twin, and the second was a normal presentation. I did give a little pull to one of the gimmers – the lamb was presented normally (as was its twin) but it was late and I really wanted to go to bed. :-)

I think this year’s lambs have been particularly vigorous – most I’ve found bopping around and already suckled. I had to help one of the gimmer’s lambs suck as she had very small teats, but they were fine after 24 hours.

One or two lambs have had mild entropion – mainly white ones; the coloured ones have been OK. In all cases, it’s been rectified within 12 hours of birth – now I know to check and flick the eyelids out when I do the navels.

So all bar Juno and Penny and their twins are out in the sun. The last two will probably go out tomorrow.

All I have to do now is keep them all fit and healthy – fingers crossed.