Wendy Beer

LambMetrics – 3rd August 2021

August 3, 2021 by Wendy Beer

#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 2
Total Lambs Born: 6
Drysdale lambs (live total): 6
English Leicester lambs (live total): 0
English Leicester X lambs (live total): 0
Total Sets of Twins born: 3
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 3
Total ram lambs: 3
Ewes lambed /70: 3 (4.28 %)
Lamb % : 200 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 0 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

Castledale & Merino Flocks

Born today: 0
Total Lambs Born: 0
Merino lambs (live total): 0
Castledale lambs (live total): 0
Total Sets of Twins born: 0
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 0
Total ram lambs: 0
Ewes lambed /62: 0 (0 %)
Lamb % : 0% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 0 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

NOTABLE MIDWIFERY TALES:

The day started simply enough – drizzle and no lambs.

The twins mob casually trouped over to their Day Paddock and all was quiet.

Come time to move back to the Night paddock it seemed straightforward until a quick check of one paddock corner revealed 2 ewes lingering.

Hmmmmmmmmmm 2 lambs. 2 ewes. All good …. but this is the twins group….. that means an investigation is required!

Turns out that one ewe hadn’t actually lambed yet but was CONVINCED. Totally convinced that those lambs were hers.

So began the typical “walk to the shed” carrying the lambs – just that this time there were 2 ewes following!

Those 2 lambs ***definitely*** look like MINE!

Once the new mother and her twins were safely in the shed it was deemed wiser to leave the wannabe mother outside the shed…… Video below!

Am hoping she calms down and just has her own lambs. For the safety of the other ewes she’s away from the rest of the mob too.

Meanwhile:

I wonder what tomorrow will bring? 🙂

LambMetrics – 2nd August 2021

August 2, 2021 by Wendy Beer

#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 2
Total Lambs Born: 4
Drysdale lambs (live total): 4
English Leicester lambs (live total): 0
English Leicester X lambs (live total): 0
Total Sets of Twins born: 2
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 3
Total ram lambs: 1
Ewes lambed /70: 2 (2.85 %)
Lamb % : 200 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 0 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

Castledale & Merino Flocks

NOTABLE MIDWIFERY TALES:

Beautiful sunshine today and in true Drysdale fashion there was a set of twins waiting for me early this morning. None of the other breed ewes look as ready to go – the Drysdales don’t believe in dilly-dallying!

Today’s twins were a mixed pair of a ram lamb and ewe lamb. They were up and ready to head off with mum when she said, move! This was her second set of twins, she had twins last year too.

It’s always nice when the sun shines – easier to get photographs! Haha

Lambmetrics – 1st August 2021

August 1, 2021 by Wendy Beer

#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 2
Total Lambs Born: 2
Drysdale lambs (live total): 2
English Leicester lambs (live total): 0
English Leicester X lambs (live total): 0
Total Sets of Twins born: 1
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 2
Total ram lambs: 0
Ewes lambed /70: 1 (1.4 %)
Lamb % : 200 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 0 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

Castledale & Merino Flocks

NOTABLE MIDWIFERY TALES:

Welcome to Lambing 2021!

First “cab off the rank”, as usual, was a Drysdale ewe this afternoon who delivered a healthy set of purebred twin ewes.

Twins are often a little “early” although I tend to find that the first to lamb are not the textbook “5 month gestation” but are actually “5 months less a week”. Good thing they made it into the Maternity Paddocks yesterday!

Regular blog readers will have spotted a change this year in the info/layout. Yep, trying something new this year!
Slightly nervous…. Normally I don’t “count” the Merino and Castledale flocks in this LambMetrics silliness but the pregnancy numbers were lower this year and I’ve had a few paddock challenges this year so am trialing this idea of lambing down the not-as-tame breeds alongside the quiet English Leicesters and Drysdales. One aim is to try and reduce some of the losses which I’ve never been able to quite pinpoint the cause of. All a bit of an experiment…. May not work. haha

The system this year is that the ewes scanned with twins are in the Day Paddock/ Night Paddock arrangement – drifted back and forth between the 2 paddocks daily. The ewes scanned with single lambs are in a larger paddock so won’t need moving. (Hopefully)

However. Today was all about this lovely Drysdale ewe who lambed late in the afternoon. She now has 2 pretty ewe lambs and they are tucked up in the shed to make sure the lambs are both sucking well before they go to the Mothers Paddock.

100% Australian Grown & Processed

December 12, 2020 by Wendy Beer

Did you know that the Australian Fibre Collective has been set up by Australian Fibre processors and growers to give consumers confidence that what they are buying is 100% Australian Grown & Processed.

To be a licencee and use the logo a rigorous application process has been undergone to prove all claims are accurate.

Many fibre products available to consumers have varying (or no) Australian processing.

To be certain of supporting Australian manufacturing look for the Australian Fibre Collective logo.

Details of current licencees and the Collective are on the AFC website:

www.australianfibrecollective.org

PS. Beersheba Farm is Licencee #0011 !

Floss Update – 13th September 2020

September 13, 2020 by Wendy Beer

Floss is home! 🙂 🙂

It will be a long recuperation and the vet is still cautious due to the “foreign body” still most likely being present where it shouldn’t be. So, lots of antibiotics and close monitoring for weeks.

And 2 months off work. (At the moment that’s easy… as she gains weight and energy again that’s going to be a challenge. LOL)

Thank you for all the well wishes and prayers. Am so glad I have a great vet too. 🙂 🙂

Floss update – September 12th 2020

September 12, 2020 by Wendy Beer

For those who had been following LambMetrics you’d have known that the youngest member of the (aging) sheepdog pack, Floss, hasn’t been too well lately and had had a couple of trips to the vet.

Yesterday I was really not happy with the way her temperature was stubbornly staying high despite the antibiotics and so Floss went back to the vet clinic for further investigation.

Long story short – septic pericarditis (icky infection around the heart) most likely caused by an inhaled grass seed months ago. Apparently it’s quite rare in dogs. Great. At least we got it before she collapsed….

Pretty serious stuff indeed.

So, I left her with my awesome vet while I went and checked out Merino rams and then later in the afternoon learnt they had successfully sucked out about 100ml of ‘gross icky stuff’ (not the technical term but essentially it was pus) from the outer lining of the heart and that she was going to stay at the vet clinic over the weekend hooked up to an IV of different antibiotics (designed for anaerobic bacteria, rather than the more regular aerobic ones she’d been initially treated for.)

As of this evening she has improved – her temperature has come down below 40C – and eating well.

The vet is still pretty guarded with his prognoses for her but temperature down and eating are all good things so I’m determined to be hopeful.

If you can spare a little prayer for her that would be amazing.

Wendy Beer

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