[Nickie]

Yay!!!


Good news. I finished lambing this morning. It's been a worrying time & not without it's problems, but all things considered it went very well.


We have ended with a massive single ram lamb, so that's 14 out of 10 ewes, not bad for welsh mountains who didn't arrive with us until October & due to the awful weather we had little grass to flush them with. We have 5 ewe lambs, 8 ram lambs & we lost 1 born in the blizzards weekend before Easter.


This is the first time with welsh mountain, kept Shetlands before. I don't know if it's the weather, bad luck or perhaps Shetlands are better mothers, but this year has given me more issues.


After 3 years without a problem, 2 of the lambs have suffered head injuries (crow/raven caused I think). 1 fully recovered, the other only happened yesterday morning. The lamb is up & happy, mum feeding well, but her head is still lop-sided & she falls over a bit - poor little love. Fingers crossed she pulls through. One of the ewes who has twins is blind in one teat, so she's had a course of injections from the vet. She's coping really well but we got the lambs on creep feed asap to help out.


For the first time ever we've had to number them all, everyone is white & look the same from a distance! Didn't have that problem with Shetlands either. We thought we were being clever by numbering all the ewes before they started lambing so that I wouldn't have to catch them after, just pick up the lambs & do them. All the wind, rain & snow faded the numbers so badly that they were unreadable in a few days - never mind, we got there eventually.


They are very cute though. Terrible time wasters.

[Rosemary]

Great feeling! We should finish next Wednesday - looking forward to an unbroken night's sleep 

[Brucklay]

Well done Nickie - enjoy your sleep and sheep 

[Nickie]

That will teach me to gloat!


Whilst I was in having my tea break one of my really strong ewe lambs has drowned herself in the water trough - god knows how she got in there. So, just spent an age catch the ewe & bringing her in. I've put the head injury in with her in the hope that she can take her on So that the other one can concentrate on her twin. Mum seems keen & accepting so here's hoping.


Why does lambing come with equal measures of heartbreak & joy?

[Foobar]

I always worry about water troughs.  I either use ones that are too high for the lambs to jump in, or low rubber ones that they *should* be able to jump out of.  Sad for you though

[MrsJ]

We're done too.  12 ewes gave us 31 lambs but we lost one little one leaving a final total of 30.  I just love it when they are all out in the field, bouncing around.  We have one that's been rejected by her mum for food, although she does still call to it and protect it.  Yesterday we had to trim mum's hooves and while she was tipped over, the lamb made the most of her chances and had a good feed!