[suziequeue]

Yay!! Finished lambing at last.  It's been a long time with the first ewe lambing like she must have gone canoodling with the tup in the first twenty minutes and the last one (who was our first timer) - obviously held onto her virtue to the end!.

So we have 7 lambs out of five ewes - six girls!!! All healthy and gadding about. No problems.

Now the chicks are due tomorrow.

The weaners have settled in and are already getting cheeky.

The only disappointment is my cucumber seedlings!

[piggy]

Congrates well done you,mine haven't even started yet! this time last year i was almost done! ive got chicks due tomorrow as well,gosling due on Wednesday fingers crossed.

[bazzais]

Its a good feeling when its all over

Just got to get these bleeding molly lambs off the bottle and it will be a nice full solid eight hour sleepytime a night!!  Be able to get on with some proper REM sleep 

Our last one to go was Bond (tag 007) - loverly mum, twins but the first one was dead on arrival - but she has a loverly boy and proud as punch.

The misses has a pony ready to drop anytime soon - but thats it for the year me thinks - no more frickin babies!! yippee

well done for 6 girls out of 7 

[jaykay]

Yeh for it being all done, good going, 6 gimmers from 7 lambs!
I am going to have stern words with mine - I am still waiting for 4 and not an extra lamb in sight this morning  And then I start kidding......

[Bramblecot]

Whew!  Last one lambed yesterday all by herself against the outside wall of the barn.  Interesting behaviour from a first time mum.  She started rubbing herself along the side of the barn really leaning into her flanks, then laid down for a few contractions, then got up and took herself over to an old ewe and laid down beside her.  The old ewe stayed with her until the twins were born then tottered off.

So my 5 cross-bred 'rescue'  Shetland x Ryeland ewes (they were meant to be store lambs) have each produced twins unaided - 5 rams, 5 ewes.  All up and running within 30 minutes - they are tough little nuts.  The lambs are like tiny exocets compared with the GFD, who are lovely but slow by comparison.

But I can't say that I'm sorry that lambing is over this year...

[Rosemary]

Shetland x Ryeland is a nice cross 

[Bramblecot]

Thank you Rosemary.  Kept by accident really but they are nice, fairly steady ewes.  Brilliant mothers, they are larger than a pure bred Shetland, and I put them to a Shetland ram so I hope they lamb easily (3 seasons so far, no problems or intervention).   They produce a slightly larger meat carcase than a pure bred, which is popular with our friends.  the purist would be horrified though