#LAMBMETRICS for the day
Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks
Born today: 6
Total Lambs Born: 52
Drysdale lambs (live total): 33
DrysdaleX lambs (total): 15
English Leicester lambs (live total): 2
Total Sets of Twins born: 14
Total Sets of Triplets born: 1
Total ewe lambs: 23
Total ram lambs: 29
Ewes lambed /72: 35 (48.6 %)
Lamb % : 143% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 3
Losses: 1 ewe, 2 lambs (stillborn)
Notable Midwifery tales:
Today was the that young Hermione finally lambed. Hermione has an interesting parentage: her sire is an English Leicester and her dam is a Drysdale. This year she was put to the English Leicester ram.
Hermione’s mother (commonly called the Kimmy or “Her Imperial Highness”) has a well-documented history of “lamb thieving”. (In the end she had to be mated so she lambed first… it saved fights….!) These things appear to have some heritability – today Hermione had her own try at such behaviour. 😕
Only her first lambing season but she tried to take someone else’s lamb as she had hers.
This actually occurs more commonly than a lot of farmers realise – some ewes look after the stolen lamb fine, others will abandon it when they have their own. This accounts for some of the neonatal deaths when there are quite a few twins. (More common with twins because the birth mother gets distracted while having #2)
