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LambMetrics – Drysdale & English Leicester lambing, Aug 24th

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#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born yesterday/today: 17
Total Lambs Born: 69
Drysdale lambs (live total): 44
DrysdaleX lambs (live total): 17
English Leicester lambs (live total): 5
Total Sets of Twins born: 21
Total Sets of Triplets born: 1
Total ewe lambs: 29
Total ram lambs: 40
Ewes lambed /72: 45 (62.5 %)
Lamb % : 147% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 4
Losses: 1 ewe, 3 lambs

Notable Midwifery tales:

The sad news: Hermione smothered her lamb the night after she lambed. 😥  She’s a maiden ewe and obviously wasn’t too good on “judging distance”. 🙁

Better news: Lots of lambs born yesterday and today. An extra 7 set of twins!

More twins…

I shift each day’s newborns and their mothers into a different paddock from the expectant ewes at the end of day. Sometimes, the ewes have lambed a fair distance from where I want them. My good old “green shopping bag” gave up the ghost last week so I’ve been needing a new one. Thankfully, I have an awesome friend who has an industrial sewing machine – so now I have a new, shiny lamb bag! It got its first work out today. Thanks, Melanie!! 😀 

Nap time.
(Sheep equivalent of falling asleep in the car!)

LambMetrics – Drysdale & English Leicester lambing, Aug 22nd

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#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)

Hermione and her lamb

LambMetrics – Drysdale & English Leicester lambing, Aug 20th

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#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 3
Total Lambs Born: 46
Drysdale lambs (live total): 30
DrysdaleX lambs (total): 12
English Leicester lambs (live total): 2
Total Sets of Twins born: 12
Total Sets of Triplets born: 1
Total ewe lambs: 20
Total ram lambs: 26
Ewes lambed /72: 31 (43 %)
Lamb % : 142% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 3
Losses: 1 ewe, 2 lambs (stillborn)

Notable Midwifery tales:

A little quieter today. Just the one maiden ewe lambing as well as Gilbert’s older sister, Minty. All easy and no worries. 🙂

Pic today is of a set of twins that are 10 days old. These are F2 Drysdale X Romney. With no new purebred genetics coming into Australia I have been breeding up some “fresh” lines from some Romney ewes. This is what most people did in the 1980s when Drysdales were new in the country. Genetically, the Drysdale is “pure” Romney anyway since it is a one gene mutation that causes the horns and “hairiness”.  Purebred Drysdales are “NN” for the hairy/horn gene and the crossbreds are “Nn”. (Romneys being “nn” I think)  It can take 2-4 generations to get “pure” Drysdales from the crossing.

F2 Drysdale X Romney lambs (10 days old)

LambMetrics – Drysdale & English Leicester lambing, Aug 19th

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Two days worth of info here. 🙂  Too busy last night with getting ready for handspinners coming for a Farm & Fibre Day.

#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 15
Total Lambs Born: 43
Drysdale lambs (live total): 27
DrysdaleX lambs (total): 12
English Leicester lambs (live total): 2
Total Sets of Twins born: 11
Total Sets of Triplets born: 1
Total ewe lambs: 19
Total ram lambs: 24
Ewes lambed /72: 29 (40.3 %)
Lamb % : 141% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 3
Losses: 1 ewe, 2 lambs (stillborn)

Notable Midwifery tales:

Finally! Some English Leicester lambs have arrived. Twin ewes delivered their lambs within 12 hours of each other.
(Note very ordinary picture of the first one, using a flash.)

 

Quite a few Drysdale ewes gave birth too. Here was one young ewe that lambed this afternoon.

LambMetrics – Drysdale & English Leicester lambing, Aug 17th

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#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 4
Total Lambs Born: 28
Drysdale lambs (live total): 17
DrysdaleX lambs (total): 9
English Leicester lambs (live total): 0
Total Sets of Twins born: 6
Total Sets of Triplets born: 1
Total ewe lambs: 13
Total ram lambs: 15
Ewes lambed /72: 19 (26.4 %)
Lamb % : 136% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 3
Losses: 1 ewe, 2 lambs (stillborn)

Notable Midwifery tales:

It’s been an up and down few days. The weather has been wet and wild and often that means the ewes do lamb but not this year – this year they are crossing their legs! Especially the English Leicesters. Several of them look fit to burst but so far no lambs!

One Drysdale ewe had triplets but 2 were stillborn. The remaining female lamb is sparky and doing well. Drysdales don’t have triplets all that often, usually I get one set every 3-4 years. Twins are a lot more common.

Was devastated to lose a youngish ewe – a ewe that had been a show sheep with magnificent wool. She had no problems last year but this year the lamb had died in utero and I ended up losing the ewe as well when she didn’t go into labour properly and I couldn’t get the lamb out.  😥  There’s not many times I haven’t been able to extract a lamb (I have smaller hands than the vet…) and it is really tough when nature beats you once in a while.

But it hasn’t all been sad. One of my older ewes, probably due for retirement, produced a lovely ram lamb, sired by Gilbert, this morning.

And this young ewe had a lovely little set of twins. The photo was taken a few moments after the little lad tried to jump on top of his mum. 🙂 

 

LambMetrics – Drysdale & English Leicester lambing, Aug 14th

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#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 5
Total Lambs Born: 20
Drysdale lambs (live total): 12
DrysdaleX lambs (total): 8
English Leicester lambs (live total): 0
Total Sets of Twins born: 6
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 9
Total ram lambs: 11
Ewes lambed /73: 14  (19.2 %)
Lamb % : 143% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 2
Losses: 0

Notable Midwifery tales:

Two sets of twins today and a large single lamb who decided to come feet first. Back feet first. Thankfully, he was actually a simple extraction.

Picture today is of a set of crossbred twins in the commercial ewes…. One of these is not like the other. 😉