The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: patrickr on March 08, 2024, 10:39:07 am
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Hi all
We're lambing in c. 6 weeks. Shetlands. The ram's been in since November and (we hope) done his job back then. All our 2023 ewe and wether lambs have been together as a separate flock. We want to take the ram out and put him with the wethers, then run our 2023 ewe lambs with the pregnant ewes all the way through lambing and beyond. Any issues foreseen with this?
Thanks
Patrick
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I always ran my ewe lambs with their mammys at lambing time. Let's them see what's ahead :innocent:
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Agree it's very useful to let them see what's ahead, but with some primitives I have found that the giddy teenagers can be a nuisance, sometimes a dangerous nuisance, if running with the others at the point of birth. So now I don't put the maidens with the ewes before lambing, but add them (with lots of space and good grass, and only a few at a time) to a group of ewes-with-lambs while the lambs are still very wee. It seems to work just as well in terms of "briefing" them, but eliminates the risk of catastrophic excitement at the point of birth.
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One thing that may be more relevant to non primitives perhaps more than you, is that our ewes get ever increasing amounts of nuts in the 6 weeks prior to and up to lambing.
To be honest, I couldn't afford to give my last years lambs that much so they are better off separate from the others on a larger parcel of land.