#LAMBMETRICS for the day
Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks
Born today: 5
Total Lambs Born: 85
Drysdale lambs (live total): 42
English Leicester lambs (live total): 28
English Leicester X lambs (live total): 10
Total Sets of Twins born: 27
Total Sets of Triplets born: 1
Total ewe lambs: 44
Total ram lambs: 41
Ewes lambed /76: 56 (73.7 %)
Lamb % : 143 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 8
Losses: 5 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]
Notable Midwifery tales:
I relented this morning and let the ewes and lambs into the garden again. Ended up only for a couple of hours though because they’ve done such a good job on the excess grass they’ve started sampling more of the shrubbery – and there’s shrubbery I’d prefer them not to eat. They have done a splendid job on the grass though. And while they did that……. I took video of some lamb “zoomies”. 🙂
Two sets of Drysdale twins today. All very fluffy and gorgeous as always. 🙂
The ewe below is actually an F2 Drysdale (a grandparent was Romney) but she’s very much a strong Drysdale phenotype. 🙂
Breeding up purebreds from Romneys was the original way a lot of breeders in Australia started out. (We did as a commercial flock back in the 1980s). It’s the only way I’ve been able to bring in new genetics over the last few years. Slow process though. Generally takes 4 generations to get individuals homozygous for the Drysdale “N” gene – visually demonstrated by a “shoulder patch” with crimp if they are heterozygous. That said, I’ve had F2 animals on occasion have no shoulder patch and theoretically be homozygous/pure. Bearing in mind that Drysdales are all derived from Romney anyway. 🙂
Was I moaning yesterday about the lack of black English Leicester ewe lambs?? Well…
TADA!
A girl!
The only trouble is that I thought the mother had scanned with twins but I was incorrect and it was only one. Darn! Oh well, bub seems very sturdy so hopefully she produces lots of lovely silver fleece (and silver lambs) 🙂 🙂
Whittling through the pregnant mob now. This will probably be the final week (give or take a few days).