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One of the reasons we raise American Blackbelly (ABB) sheep is because they are so easy during lambing season. They tend to give birth during the day, and rarely need assistance. We’ve lost one ewe to a very large baby she was too small to birth, and helped pull one lamb last year, that didn’t need much help other than a tug (we only intervened because the baby had been partially out for about 30 minutes). And that’s in all the births we’ve had starting in 2013. Probably several hundred lambs in going on 9 years.
We do, occasionally, end up with a bottle baby. It’s often to lambs born early in the season, when its still cold. I always think mama looks around and thinks, “There’s no grass. I can’t feed two of these.” I don’t think we’ve ever had a ewe outright reject a lamb when they only had a single baby in 9 years. And we do always wonder if mama doesn’t know something we don’t, in terms of the long term health of the lamb, when she rejects one of them.
When this first happened, I scrambled to learn how to feed these little guys. Stories abounded of people keeping lambs in the house in dog crates and feeding ever 3 hours in the middle of the night. The lamb is completely imprinted on humans and the human is exhausted with the feeding schedule. But these were standard Suffolk or Dorper lambs. The ones people often say are just “trying” to die for the first few weeks. Blackbellys are stronger than that. They have been bred to survive, not “saved by human intervention” for hundreds of generations.
So I came up with my own system specific to bottle feed to this breed. And I’ve just realized I’ve never really written about it. It’s time to remedy that.
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18 lambs and counting…we have one ewe who hasn’t given birth
We try hard to not have our lambs until the weather warms up a bit here in Walla Walla. We don’t really have an enclosed barn for our ewes, just a few open ended horse stalls. And the ewes don’t want to be in a horse stall anyway. They want to be out in the far end of the field when they give birth. And catching ONE ewe right before she gives birth is nigh impossible on our farm. We want them to have as natural an experience as possible, keeping ourselves out of the picture and letting nature lead the way. But that means NOT having babies in January, when there is snow on the ground. Read the rest of this entry »
Babies!!!!
We generally like to have our American Blackbelly Ewes give birth in March. The weather has warmed up enough by then that we don’t need to worry so much about a newborn getting chilled, or mama being stressed enough that she decides she doesn’t want another mouth to feed. Because sheep have a 5 month gestation, that means that we put our ram in with our ewes in early October.
But not last year. Kenny, our beautiful ram, had only one fence between him and his girlfriends, and he had been pining after them for MONTHS, and so he promptly rammed his rather substantial head and horns against an inadequate wooden fence post until he broke the post. That, along with the bottom of the fence not being well attached, and in he went with his girls in early September. Read the rest of this entry »
Barber pole worms. A phrase I was familiar with, but only in a passing way until a few weeks ago.
We recently weened our flock of lambs, at approximately 10 weeks of age, separating the ewes from the rams. We had a total of 21 rams, two adults and 19 lambs. (Once again, we had a hugely skewed sex ratio this year, about 75% male). We now have 10 rams total. We lost a ram a few weeks ago. He was small. It sometimes happens. We didn’t think a whole lot of it. Then a few days later, we lost another one, and I started calling our vet. They basically told me, “we’ll just send the pathology out to the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab (WADDL) at Washington State University in Pullman. Cut out the middle man and talk to them directly”. So, two Thursdays ago, after several “let me transfer you” phone conversations, we found ourselves driving to Pullman with a lamb that we didn’t expect to make the trip (he didn’t). Results were extreme anemia and presence of Barber pole worms (Haemonchus contortus). Read the rest of this entry »
March is baby month. We started a bit early this year, with the first baby born on February 23rd. (We put the ram in with the ewes on September 26th, so right on time, 4 months and 28 days later, our first lambs were born). We have a total of 17 ewes and 2 rams. All of the ewes should be pregnant. Most ewes will have a single their first year, and twins the following years. Which means we’re gonna have a LOT of babies. Read the rest of this entry »
Cocoa’s Triplets. Because she is half Soay sheep, her babies tend to have more variation in coloring.
Babies. Boy do we have babies. We have 12 ewes of breeding age, and we ended up with 21 lambs, born from March 2nd through March 23rd. Five sets of twins, two sets of triplets(!), and 5 singles. We weren’t expecting the triplets. One mama, Cocoa, is doing just fine with her three, but the second mama, Maggie, has rejected one of hers. So we have one bottle baby. Of the 21 lambs, 17 of them are male. SEVENTEEN. Seriously?! We have no idea why our sex ratio is so skewed, though something very similar happened the first year we had lamb babies (10 out of 13 were male), and they too were also all born in March. Read the rest of this entry »
This week, it’s all about the babies, or toddlers, really, in most cases.
Our last lamb was born on May 5th. Our first lamb was born on December 28th. That’s a pretty good spread for 13 ewes. We weren’t sure this one was EVER going to deliver. It’s really hard to tell if they are pregnant when they are only carrying one. But its a beautiful long legged little ewe, and we’re very happy to be done with the season. Note that mama looks so scruffy because she’s starting to shed her hair. We run American Blackbelly “hair” sheep, which don’t require shearing.
Hard to believe this baby is only a month old. “Am I big enough yet”?
I just returned from the Washington State Farmers Market Association conference in Vancouver Washington. It was a great opportunity to talk to other farmers and market managers, find out what the latest Department of Ag rule changes are (take home message: don’t put anything in a clam shell or a sealed bag, including twist ties – unless you have a food processor license, because doing so makes it “ready to eat”), and most importantly, get away from the farm for a few days. Bless my husband for feeding everyone (including the Bean), collecting eggs, and generally holding down the fort. Read the rest of this entry »
Just born. If I saw the ground looking like this, I’d figure there wasn’t enough to eat too. Not sure which one is nursing here. We DO think she fed him for the first day or so.
The title of this post is in honor of all the football playoffs happening today. As in “Da Bears”. This is Bean. As in Little Bean. As in Beanie Weenie. As in the cutest little sheep baby you’ve ever seen. On January 8th, Wallula gave birth to twins, one girl and one boy. The boy was the smaller of the two. At first, everything seemed fine. But after a day or so, we started to see her push him out of the way when he tried to nurse. We put her and the babies in a stall for a couple of days, and secured her head so the little boy could eat 3 or 4 times a day. But she still wasn’t interested in him. Read the rest of this entry »
Newly minted. You can still see the umbilical cord.
On December 28th, we were finally going to make a trek up to Spokane to see my husband’s mom. We were out feeding critters in the early morning before we left, and I look over and see four new little feet. Maggie, one of our American Blackbelly/Soay sheep, has had a baby, and its a boy! We weren’t expecting any babies until late January. Surprise!
Penned up and safe. Shortly after this picture was taken, I watched this little guy make a nest in the hay and lay down. How’s that for instincts!
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