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LambMetrics – 3rd August 2020

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#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 2
Total Lambs Born: 7
Drysdale lambs (live total): 5
English Leicester lambs (live total): 2
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: 4
Ewes lambed /76: 5  (6.5 %)
Lamb % : 140 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 0

Notable Midwifery tales:

Two Drysdale lambs born today. Both male.

Note the peanut gallery in the background…. Getting some hints?! The twins mob still haven’t started lambing!

Not much to say really today. Both lambs born unassisted and doing well.

The world is an amazing place when you are only 1-2hrs old.
Drysdale ram lamb. Sired by Henry, dam is sired by Gilbert
That’s MY lamb you’re looking at *stomp*
Full tummy. Is sleepy. zzzzzzzzzz

LambMetrics – 2nd August 2020

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#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 1
Total Lambs Born: 5
Drysdale lambs (live total): 3
English Leicester lambs (live total): 2
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: 2
Ewes lambed /76: 3  (3.9 %)
Lamb % : 166 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 0

Notable Midwifery tales:

Just the one Drysdale lamb born this evening. A sturdy young lad to a first time mum.

The Merino ewes have decided to also get going. And prove me wrong in the process. Usually twin-bearing ewes have a slightly shorter gestation so I was expecting the twinners to start first. Nope.  Three or four in the “Singles” mob.

Phone camera on max zoom…. not getting too close to these ones!

While I was doing evening rounds I noticed a few white “clumps” on the ground. Hmmm…. Not wool? Nope….

Down feathers?! So, I look up – in time to see a pair of Galahs whizz past – and then I see —

Someone has been cleaning house

… and saw feather-festooned bark around a hollow in a dead Red Stringybark.

Hopefully some baby Galahs soon!

LambMetrics – 31st July 2020

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The last few years I’ve kept track of the lambing statistics in the Drysdale & English Leicester flocks). I call these “LambMetrics”.
Hopefully, they provide a little insight into the real-life “goings-on” here.

#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
Total Sets of Twins born: 1
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 2
Total ram lambs: 0
Ewes lambed /76: 1  (1.3 %)
Lamb % : 200 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 0

Notable Midwifery tales:

After the success of a shorter joining (mating) period last year the same tactic was employed. There were a couple of hiccups on the way but the ewes were scanned in June and the number pregnant was very pleasing.

The ewes are due to “officially” start lambing around the 7th August. As usual, someone didn’t read the memo.

Being mindful of the tendency of some of the ewes to be Not Memo Readers I brought the Drysdale and English Leicester ewe mob into their lambing paddocks yesterday. Just in time……

Can you pick who the mother is and who is trying to take a lamb (or 2) for herself??

We’ve had some glorious weather lately which, naturally, makes me wonder when that weather will become nasty and whether it will encourage the ewes to lamb! They do seem to want to lamb during a “low pressure” event and not necessarily when the sun is shining. Frustrating but Nature has a mind of her own. Ha!

So, the ewes spent last night in their “Night Paddock” and today I let them run up a laneway as a Day paddock because they aren’t due for another week and therefore I wouldn’t need to hike to the top of the laneway and carry down the lambs.

These ewes are very calm to handle for me (mostly) and are lambing, more and more, during daylight hours. Which is very “alpaca-like” of them and something I highly approve of! Sure enough, when I went over this evening to get them back into the Night Paddock I discovered that there were two ewes and two lambs ….. Of course, one ewe didn’t have hollow sides – or any other obvious signs of parturition – so she was just being a nosey parker and was definitely attempting to “get one” for herself. Hmmmm I’ll have to watch her! And try get a look at her tag to see who she is. I’m suspecting she may be from a known “Lamb Robber” line of ewes.

Ewe lamb #1

Miss Lamb Robber is now back in the Night Paddock and the new mum is in the hay shed. She doesn’t really need my help at all but until there are a couple more ewes with lambs I don’t want her out by herself. The foxes are going to be hungry this year and the alpacas can only do so much.

Ewe lamb #2 and mumma

Drysdale lambs are born with a tremendous amount of (carpet) fleece on. This really does mean they are pretty impervious to the weather – more so than some breeds – and I would only ever put a coat on one if it was very ill.

And there we have it – the start of Lambing 2020! It’s going to be a busy August this year since the Merino and Castledale ewes didn’t lamb in July but will also be in August. There’s a very good chance that the Head Midwife and Deputy Midwife will get a lot of walking done but hopefully not too much “work”!!

Ladies in Waiting tonight…

LambMetrics – September 20th, 2019

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#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born 13-18/9/19: 3
Total Lambs Born: 72
Drysdale lambs (live total): [no purebreds in 2019]
DrysdaleX lambs (total): 38
English Leicester lambs (live total): 33
Total Sets of Twins born: 15
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 33
Total ram lambs: 39
Ewes lambed /68: 57 (83.8 %)
Lamb % : 124 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 8
Losses: 1

FINAL FIGURES:
Plus! More stats!

  English Leicester Drysdale X
Ewe lambs 14 19
Ram lambs 20 19
Sets of Twins 9 6
Ewes lambed 24 33
Ewes empty 6 5
Total Lambing % 113% 100%
Assisted/Dystocia 2 6
Losses 1 0
Lambs needing ongoing supplemental feeding 2-4 0
Lambs needing colostrum supplement 12 1
Lambs requiring treatment for infection 4 2

Notable Midwifery tales:

Well, looks like we’re finally finished for 2019!
It wasn’t a bad effort in the end – despite the season and a shorter than usual “joining” period. We actually expected a much lower figure of lambs because of the reduced time frame. Looks like the rams had ideas of their own…!

We hope you’ve enjoyed our annual lambing journey. 🙂

Last one for 2019! (I think)

LambMetrics – September 6th, 2019

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#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 4
Total Lambs Born: 55
Drysdale lambs (live total): [no purebreds in 2019]
DrysdaleX lambs (total): 31
English Leicester lambs (live total): 23
Total Sets of Twins born: 12
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 25
Total ram lambs: 30
Ewes lambed /68: 43 (63.2 %)
Lamb % : 125 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 7
Losses: 1

Notable Midwifery tales:

Remember Hermione the Lambnapper who was taking after her mother yesterday?

Just after the blog posted last night she had her lamb. 🙂

Hermione and her strapping young lad

Today was supposed to be easy….. yeah, right.

This year we’re really trying to make sure the lambs are getting enough milk so we pretty much have them under a microscope – and analysing each move they make (or don’t). The downside is several more getting “top-up” bottles during the day.

Today saw a few heavy showers come through and about lunchtime (bottle time) the lambs were fed but one English Leicester lamb was missing. After 15-20 minutes of looking behind sheds, under the tractor in the shed (favourite spot!) in the nettles patches, under fences, behind woodpiles it was looking increasingly like it had vanished into thin air. Maybe it was taken by an eagle was one thought.

Then, the thought that maybe it had squeezed through the gate into the feed shed while it was raining. Walk in… no….. then turn around and…

Smart lamb, staying dry and making his mother/s freak out

The mother was very pleased to see him. He needs a top-up bottle though (one reason why he was feeling a bit frail and hid himself away).

Meanwhile, while the searching was going on it was noticed that the neighbour’s young cattle had got through the fence and were in our paddock! Once the lambs had been sorted out it was up the hill to move sheep out of the way so the cattle could be collected. (The sheep were a little bemused – “we just moved in here yesterday!”)  The cattle thought this was a wonderful idea and ran around exploring. I left the neighbour to do the cattle wrangling – and I headed home for a late lunch!

After a quick dash to town to post some orders it was time to clean pens and check on a pet ewe that had looked like she was “ready”.

Chores were done, English Leicesters were rearranged but there was still no lambs from “Miss Piggy”. A few alarm bells were ringing as she was watched walking around the paddock. She wasn’t going to be easy to get into the shed so she was caught in the paddock and with the 2nd shepherdess holding the mother’s “hand” a quick exam determined that Miss Piggy was indeed “ready” but the lamb at the door was trying to be born breech (hocks first in this case) and the placenta was already trying to come with it (that’s not good). Thankfully, no-one takes photos while the shepherdess has arm-length obstetric gloves on with her hand inserted to manipulate a lamb!

The lamb’s legs were moved so that the toes would come first and then it was pulled pretty easily. It was alive! It was placed in front of Miss Piggy and she immediately started to lick it which is a very important instinctive behaviour for lamb-mother bonding and for the external stimulation of the lamb.

Miss Piggy has had twins previously and our standard procedure when doing an intervention is to always check for a twin. There was a twin.

This twin was in correct birthing position and a bit further “back” in the uterus. Normally it would be fine to leave the ewe to deliver the second lamb but with darkness approaching and being unsure how long everything else had taken it was decided to extract the second. That turned out to be a good decision as the second lamb was showing signs of stress – it had done a poo whilst in utero. Being jammed up behind your brother is common across the species…. 😉

Both lambs were a good size and Miss Piggy is a great mum. 🙂 (She’s not a Drysdale or a English Leicester, she’s actually a Composite (a crossbred with lots of breeds in it!)).

LambMetrics – September 5th, 2019

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#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 6
Total Lambs Born: 51
Drysdale lambs (live total): [no purebreds in 2019]
DrysdaleX lambs (total): 27
English Leicester lambs (live total): 23
Total Sets of Twins born: 11
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 23
Total ram lambs: 28
Ewes lambed /68: 40 (58.8 %)
Lamb % : 125 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 6
Losses: 1

Notable Midwifery tales:

May as well get the bad news out of the way – the sick English Leicester lamb passed away overnight. 🙁 When we went over for the late feed there was improvement and we went to bed more hopeful but, as so often happens, it was the final “rally” before the end. His mum is upset but she’s moved on from standing over him so she’s doing okay (Have had Drysdale ewes want to stand over the lamb for days.)

But! It wasn’t all bad. The good news was that the other lambs that were worrying us last night are all okay! Lambs are being fed and the lamb with the odd shoulder and “ad hoc bandage” is able to get itself up and about and feeding well.

After the bottle-feeding and the initial checks of a newborn lamb it was on to check the rest of the lambs. Bedlam!

The Nursery

Then it was a quick walk across the paddock to the flock of Merino and Castledale ewes to shift them into a new paddock. Only had to call once and they came running.

Waiting at the gate.

There was a fair bit of skipping and jumping when they went through the gate. They are relishing not having “grown-up responsibilities” this year!

By lunchtime there were three more ewes that had lambed – two sets of twins and a single. All English Leicester.

This evening though was when the fun started. The first thing noticed upon arrival for evening feed and chores was that the young, black, English Leicester ewe (pictured above) had “lost” her lamb….. It had been lambnapped!

When her “Imperial Highness” Kimmy passed away at the start of the year (at the Grand age of 14) we thought the serious lambnapping days were over.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Hermione* has now decided to take up the mantle that was laid down by her mother, Kimmy. (Family tradition – Kimmy’s mother was a thief too!)

Separating the desperate mother-to-be, Hermione, from the timid, bewildered first-time mother was tricky. The young ewe wouldn’t follow her lamb well enough but Hermione would. So, it ended up that the first course of action was to use the lamb to get Hermione up and out of the paddock.

“Noooooooooo…. my babeeeeeeeee” Not.

Once the lambnapper was removed from the scene the lamb was returned to its mother who was a bit unsure about the whole drama. Unfortunately, Hermione had been licking the lamb (and letting it drink!) which puts her scent on the lamb and which puts the actual mother off believing it’s hers!

The young ewe was left to re-bond with her lamb and the next procedure was to stop Hermione stealing the other newborn from the morning! And she was determined! Again, we had to use that newborn to tempt Hermione into the pens in the shed as well as get the actual mother in as well. That ewe, a maiden Drysdale, was also a bit confused but she was more strongly bonded than the black ewe so it was easier. They were tucked into a pen at one end of the shed and Hermione was firmly placed into a pen at the other end. If she’s anything like her mother she will have a lamb tonight or tomorrow.

Hermione looking wistfully at lambs that Could Be Hers.

Getting the young, black ewe up to the shed for penning overnight was a test of patience. She isn’t as quiet as the rest of the girls and they normally follow you quite well if you’re carrying the lamb. Not this one. Took strategic person-placement and judicious use of shed-friendly ewes (ie. one of the ones whose lambs are being bottle-fed) to get her into the shed for some quiet bonding time.

The night-time check is about happen so stay tuned for tomorrow’s episode! 😉

* Hermione is English Leicester X Drysdale, along with her twin brother – Harry. She has had 2 previous pregnancies.