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LambMetrics – 28th August 2021

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#LAMBMETRICS for the last few days

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 0
Total Lambs Born: 107
Drysdale lambs (live total): 48
English Leicester lambs (live total): 37
English Leicester X lambs (live total): 13
Total Sets of Twins born: 35
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 53
Total ram lambs: 54
Ewes lambed /70: 70  (100 %)
Lamb % : 140 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 11
Losses: 9 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

Castledale & Merino Flocks

Born today: 4
Total Lambs Born: 99
MerinoX lambs (live total): 25
Castledale lambs (live total): 67
Total Sets of Twins born: 38
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Ewes lambed /62: 61  (98.3 %)
Lamb % : 150% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 2
Losses: 9 [lamb]; 1 [ewe]

 

NOTABLE MIDWIFERY TALES:

Down to only 1 ewe still pregnant. I think. (I don’t have the hi-viz tags on the Merino and Castledale ewes and it’s got confusing with a paddock full of lambs. lol)

Beautiful day today but the other night – straight after the blog – was drama-filled when I went back to feed lambs and went to try get 2 lambs back with their mother and then discovered a ewe “down” and her (new) lamb missing.

Found it under a fallen tree. Couldn’t tell if a fox had tried to grab it or if it had bled a bit due to getting itself into a tight spot.

The Merino ewe is okay now but wasn’t interested in her lamb whatsoever. And at 9pm I wasn’t going to muck about – a jacket, a bottle and a warm shed were in its future. (The ICU Small Animal rugs are awesome – I can put a heat pack in the jacket to keep the lamb snug all night.) Lamby is now doing well.

And then there was another lamb whose mother didn’t want it.

Those of you keeping track will realise this means that now I have WAY TOO MANY lambs on the bottle.

I caved. I got the special “Lambar” feeder to make like easier for Mum and I.

The poddy lambs may need a blog post all their own. There are a variety of reasons the lambs are on the bottle – ranging from fox attack injuries to orphans. They are quite the “gang” now!

One set of twins is on the bottle because their mum had been ill and subsequently didn’t have quite enough milk when they were born.

This ewe had a partial vaginal prolapse. The “retainer” normally ties to the wool but short wool necessitates a harness to “hold it all in”!

There was a request for a Floss update.

You will be pleased to know that Floss appears to have made a full recovery! Thank you all for the love, prayers and good wishes for her.

Floss – nearly 2 yrs old

The other day was International Dog Day or some such thing. So here are some pics of the other dogs here. 🙂

Bramble and Brighid are slowing down now. Maggie isn’t an awesome sheepdog generally but she’s been very useful on the night rounds during lambing. She’s been taking “guard dog” duties very seriously!

  • Bramble – aged 12
  • Bramble & Brighid – litter sisters
  • Maggie

Today was so lovely – so here are some flowers in the garden too.

  • Peach – “Lady Palmerston”
  • “Silver Princess” – E. caesia spp

Supposed to rain tonight – obviously that means the last sheep will probably lamb!

Hopefully the stats can be wrapped up tomorrow!

Floss Update – 13th September 2020

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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

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Floss (August 1st, 2020)

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.