[TheCaptain]

Well, after a slow start (two weeks with a couple of twins out of my Lleyn x), the Portland girlies have finally got on with it and I've had 4 in 36 hours. Two more to go, 5 ewe lambs and one ram lamb - all absolute crackers! My twins out of the Lleyn x are bonkers, although one is cream with a brown belt across her middle and tight wool on the front and loose wool on the back; the other one could be a pure pedigree if you didn't know any different! As always, the mums are doing a fantastic job, penned them up last night just to make sure non of the lambies got confused but they're all tearing around today in a gaggle!


Pics to follow.

[Mammyshaz]

Congratulations on your new Christmas bundles. Piccies please would be nice 

[mowhaugh]

Can't quite get my head round the idea of lambs before Christmas, but very pleased it is all going well.  Can we have a photo of your two-tone lamb when you have time?

[TheCaptain]

Can't quite get my head round the idea of lambs before Christmas, but very pleased it is all going well.

Why's that then?

[Marches Farmer]

As the days lengthen in the Autumn the ewes come into season and the lambs are will then be born in Spring, when the grass begins to grow away and feed the ewe well enough to support good milk production.  This does away with the need to feed the ewe expensive concentrates after lambing and hopefully to avoid housing the lambs in freezing weather.

[TheCaptain]

Well, if we have another year like the beginning of this year you're going to be very disappointed with the Spring 'grass' that didn't start growing down here until May. My sheep are fed top quality hay, which they'd be fed anyway if they were in-lamb. They'd also be fed concentrates to aid growth in the lamb. Seen as they're Primitives they thrive on this system, and actually, given the amazing late Summer and Autumn grass, have produced some amazing lambs. They also receive full benefit of that Spring grass. Thanks for the lesson in explaining Spring-lambing.


Horses for courses at the end of the day - I only do it as a hobby and it suits me to have lambs pre-Christmas. A couple of farmers around here lamb in October, some of them lamb in December and some in January to get the best prices at Mart post-Easter.


Just so you can get your head around it, it means putting the ram in around the end of July.

[SteveHants]

As the days lengthen in the Autumn the ewes come into season and the lambs are will then be born in Spring, when the grass begins to grow away and feed the ewe well enough to support good milk production.  This does away with the need to feed the ewe expensive concentrates after lambing and hopefully to avoid housing the lambs in freezing weather.

This is all well and good if your motivation is profit. I don't think the December/January lambers saw much of that last year after having to feed ewes and lambs through the awful spring.

[mowhaugh]

Can't quite get my head round the idea of lambs before Christmas, but very pleased it is all going well.

Why's that then?

I am sorry if it came across as a criticism, it certainly wasn't indended that way, just a comment.

As to why, we are right up in the hills, and are very often under feet of snow now.  Whilst it does happen occassionally April/May, it's much less likely, so for us, that dictates our lambing time, apart from the very few we lamb inside in March.

Also, at this time of year, it often takes the best part of the day to feed everything, so wouldn't have time to lamb as well.

Appreciate your situation is different though.

[SallyintNorth]

BH used to leave a group of ewes with a tup all through the summer, just to see when we'd get the first lambs. 

Up until starting to use a Charollais tup, and keeping lots of his ewe lambs on, the earliest we ever got lambs was one lamb 4th Jan one year, otherwise it was usually end of Jan/early Feb before we got any.

The Charollais definitely come cycling much earlier, so now we have to keep a much tighter check on where the tups are, and segregate any remaining tup lambs, much earlier.

We can manage a few earlies, as we have a few spaces indoors we can house them if need be, but in general it needs to be March before we get any real number of lambs, or we'll lose a lot in a bad year.

This year we had a couple of tups out (neither of which Charollais) with a small number of ewes from 20th Sept.  But there was no real action until mid-Oct, when the weather turned much much colder.

So we'll be lambing from mid-March - and it'll be a protracted one, we had one tup firing blanks, and the batch he failed to stop have just had a mishap and quite a few are returning to their new tup yet again. 

Every year is different! 

[Bramblecot]

Different areas, different breeds.  My friend finished her lambing at the end of November (Poll Dorsets).  Most local farmers with Dorsets will lamb indoors in January .  Me?  April, outdoors with the option to come in thank you .  I'd love to see those lambs Captain .

[TheCaptain]

Jesus, I just read my post back - it was all meant in either tongue-in-cheek or just matter-of-fact. My brand of sarcasm does not translate well to the internet, and does come across as plain rude. Sorry for that!


Having discussed the current and previous lambings with the better half, we've decided it's ridiculous to lamb at this time because the weather is proper rubbish!

[feldar]

I am lambing too. Girls have been in for a couple of weeks now due to the awful weather   we are feeding lovely hay this year made in the summer and yes we do feed concentrate but hopefully we will get the early market for Easter lambs and make a profit. We've had a good lambing so far mostly twins. lost a good lamb this morning though when it got stuck behind some hurdles and got cold, but we've managed to foster one on to her so it's swings and roundabouts, but that's sheep for you.
Good luck with the rest Captain, i love lambing this time of year, in fact i love lambing full stop, the next batch are due late January then the BWM and Dorset Horns are due March/April. 

[twizzel]

The farmer I get my orphan bunch from lambs in January through to end February. It's mild down here although this year's late spring did cock things up a bit. I know of some farmers lambing poll dorsets now so although it's not a common occurrence it isn't as unusual as you think... horses for courses I guess. If I ever have any ewes they will lamb early Jan/Feb time as my work gets very busy March onwards...

[TheCaptain]

I'm having a bit of a conundrum at the moment with where we#re going with our flock, what we're keeping, what we're not keeping, what we're expanding, if we're expanding etc etc. I do love lambing this time of year as it does break the year up and they all seem to do really well as the Portland is a primitive breed and only have the single lamb to raise...

[Bramblecot]

I felt sorry for the sheep out on the coastal hills this afternoon - they have just been shorn before they are brought in to lamb.  Not the sort of weather to be out without a coat