The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: TheCaptain on January 13, 2012, 10:12:20 am

Title: Nearly done lambing
Post by: TheCaptain on January 13, 2012, 10:12:20 am
Well, we're nearly all done and dusted with lambing our Portlands for this year. We started early and with tragedy - my first ewe to go lambed fine but just didn't seem 'right' afterwards and looked like she was still in labour. We rang the vet who prescribed anti-inflammatory and antibiotic and my sheep farmer friend came over to check  we hadn't missed anything. I kept getting up every hour through the night only to find she died sometime between half one and half two in the morning. So, 'Tiny Tim' was brought into the fold (when I say fold, I mean house) after milking dead mum of what she had in her udder - not an experience I ever want to repeat, but gave Timmy the start he needed. Now Timmy looks nothing like a 'pure' Portland, he's got a white fleece with brown patches on his legs and his face. I'll get some photos uploaded at some point!
The rest of the girls went without hitch, lambing overnight with little fuss bar one who pushed her lamb out so quick that he only had the chance to get one of his legs forward so needed a bit of help to get him out. I'm chuffed because even the girl who i thought was barren has had a beautiful little lamb yesterday morning (along with two others!). One left to go and she doesn't look like she'll be too long. I'll get the camera out later!

Really sad about losing one of the ewes, but chuffed that everything else has gone (relatively) without a hitch!

Baaaaaaa!
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: Rich/Jan on January 13, 2012, 10:22:36 am
We haven't even started over here yet.  February is our time for lambing so hope the weather is kind to us.  Pity about the ewe you lost otherwise you did well.
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: Anke on January 13, 2012, 05:20:32 pm
So who is "Tiny Tim's" dad then? Any Jacobs nearby? Hope he is doing all right.
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: Rosemary on January 13, 2012, 05:49:40 pm
We don't start until 25th March  :) so well done, you, having it all done and ready for the grass to come in.

Can't wait for photos - Portlands are lovely. Do they ever have multiple births?
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: TheCaptain on January 13, 2012, 06:04:24 pm
No Jacobs, or anything else for that matter, for miles around. He's as pure a Portland as can be! Question is, do I register him...

 ;D
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: kanisha on January 13, 2012, 06:15:45 pm
the brown patches will fade
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: TheCaptain on January 13, 2012, 07:09:17 pm
Ah, well therein lies a problem as Portlands are supposed to be tan face and tan legs...  ;D
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: Anke on January 13, 2012, 07:25:40 pm
Well one of my white shetland lambs is now showing fairly faint, but definitely there, grey katmoget markings on his hace and his horns are dark.... checking back the pedigrees is looks - his Great-grand-sire was a katmoget... I am abit wary of what is in the pedigrees...

I personally would castrate any male lamb that is clearly mismarked... even though it is a shame sometimes.
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: colliewoman on January 13, 2012, 07:36:07 pm
Why do you live so far away, he sounds just what I am after.
Pale fleece, katmoget markings.....perfect. (for me at least!)
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: onnyview on January 13, 2012, 09:30:13 pm
Portlands look so cute as lambs with all that foxy redness. It's a same it fades!

Great to hear you've finished lambing and sounds as though, on the whole, it wasn't to bad. My OH always says the more sheep we have the more chances of something happening to them, still doesn't make it any easier, though, so sorry about your ewe.


 You can put you feet up and smile smugly at the rest of us now!

Allison :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: kanisha on January 14, 2012, 09:06:33 am
How patchy is he?
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: Dougal on January 14, 2012, 03:12:36 pm
What a sod about your ewe. Maybe she had ripped inside. If your last ewe is due a single you'll tiny twinned onto her as a foster, save bottle feeding and they always do better with a mother. I don't start lambing until the 20th of april but i sponged my ewes so i'll have about 50 to lamb in 2 days. busy but fun.
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: Anke on January 14, 2012, 05:43:40 pm
Why do you live so far away, he sounds just what I am after.
Pale fleece, katmoget markings.....perfect. (for me at least!)

His fleece is actually white, it's only the face that has markings. But he was ringed any way... It was just weird when these markings started to apear, I thought I had mismothered/swapped a lamb (as I have also some 1/4 suffolk cross lambs it could have easily been one of them..., but they don't have horns!)
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: TheCaptain on January 14, 2012, 07:12:23 pm
What a sod about your ewe. Maybe she had ripped inside. If your last ewe is due a single you'll tiny twinned onto her as a foster, save bottle feeding and they always do better with a mother. I don't start lambing until the 20th of april but i sponged my ewes so i'll have about 50 to lamb in 2 days. busy but fun.

We've no idea what happened to her - her placenta had some weird nodules on it but the vet didn't think anything of it. I still have her beautiful ram born last year who's starting to challenge his dad for looks and conformation - Hercules is on his final warnings for bad behaviour (namely headbutting me three times today); every cloud has a silver lining and that.

Fostering is an option but I'm not sure how Tiny Tim would take to it; he lived in our house for the first couple of weeks of his life (born 16 Dec) but moved outside into the shed with the other ewes and lambs and has hurdled quarters as some of the ewes can be quite aggressive to him. He's really quite big and gives my German Shepherd short shrift!

50 in 2 days, you're bonkers!
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: feldar on January 14, 2012, 08:07:29 pm
Sorry to here about your ewe, It's a pain when you loose one. We managed to stop a bad mastitis forming hopefully this evening, the ewe was away down the field and looking rough so we caught her up and sure enough she had a mastitis forming in one quarter. a dose of antibiotics for her and we will have to keep an eye on her.
Would be good if you can find a ewe to foster your boy onto, i always think they do so much better on a ewe. they learn how to be a sheep proper, rather than a pet.
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: Tilly on January 14, 2012, 08:59:05 pm

Hi The Captain  :wave:

Well done with your lambing   :thumbsup:
-shame you lost a ewe but sometimes these things happen  :bouquet:

How many lambs -  %   did you get from the Portland ewes? .

Tilly
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: TheCaptain on January 14, 2012, 10:13:56 pm
Sorry to here about your ewe, It's a pain when you loose one. We managed to stop a bad mastitis forming hopefully this evening, the ewe was away down the field and looking rough so we caught her up and sure enough she had a mastitis forming in one quarter. a dose of antibiotics for her and we will have to keep an eye on her.
Would be good if you can find a ewe to foster your boy onto, i always think they do so much better on a ewe. they learn how to be a sheep proper, rather than a pet.

Yeah, it would be nice but my three orphans from last year are just fine in with the rest of my flock and are well behaved.


Hi The Captain  :wave:

Well done with your lambing   :thumbsup:
-shame you lost a ewe but sometimes these things happen  :bouquet:

How many lambs -  %   did you get from the Portland ewes? .

Tilly

Thanks for your wishes - I did very little TBH, the girls just seem to pop them out. Portlands are all about the singles and we'll have 100% once the last one goes, which is up one from last year as we had one which we thought was barren.

Looking in the shed tonight was awesome, a sea of lambs!
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: TheCaptain on January 18, 2012, 12:09:24 pm
Some phots, including Tiny Tim!
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: kanisha on January 18, 2012, 12:54:46 pm
Brill ;D I see what you mean about tiny tim :love: but he is spotty!!

I am playing with these genetics at the moment but still have no answers for you!!
Title: Re: Nearly done lambing
Post by: TheCaptain on January 18, 2012, 01:16:51 pm
Do they do albino Portlands?   ;D