lambs

#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 4
Total Lambs Born: 92
Drysdale lambs (live total): 43
English Leicester lambs (live total): 32
English Leicester X lambs (live total): 11
Total Sets of Twins born: 29
Total Sets of Triplets born: 1
Total ewe lambs: 48
Total ram lambs: 44
Ewes lambed /76: 61  (80.3 %)
Lamb % : 141 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 8
Losses: 6 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

Notable Midwifery tales:

Sometimes the blog-worthy things happen after the blog has been uploaded for the evening…

So, last night, as usual, after the LambMetrics were done I headed across the paddock in the dark, over the gully, up the hill to where the sheds are at the old house to feed the pet lambs.

Organised the milk, fed the lambs (pushy lil beggars LOL) and then rinsed out the bottles using the tankwater beside the shed since the water in the house has stopped until I can get the plumber to fix it.

Now, yesterday, I had to get the horse into the area behind the house because I felt she was tipping over the laminitic edge (drat). She wasn’t overly thrilled at being cooped up and followed me where I was washing the bottles and then went back to a pile of hay. I thought.

I headed back to the house to finish things up and…. heard the gate chain rattle on one side of the small paddock… Now, one thing you need to know about my mare is that she is chestnut and she is very, very good at opening gates.

In a flash I realise I hadn’t put the “horse-proof” latch in place because she hasn’t been in that area for months. Oh no. I put the bottles I am carrying down beside the gate into the garden and head off with the torch – calling to the horse and reminding her she isn’t allowed out in the orchard. (That’s part of the Day Paddock for the pregnant ewes!)

Annnd the gate is wide open. Drat. Oh wait, there’s a white blob in the torchlight…. oh rats, a Drysdale ewe with twins, camped for the night on the wrong side of the fence. Argh. Go a bit further and find three more ewes with lambs. ARGH. The gate has obviously been open for a while. I’d taken the alpacas out of that paddock to put with the ewes in the Big Paddock so no way I wanted ewes and lambs where they were.

Muttering dark things I’m trying to get ewes and lambs to move. It’s hard enough at the best of times but in the dark, when I’m tired and just want to go to bed…. arrrgggghhhh. In the end I had to be as “annoying as possible” and wrangled them all back through the gate.

Then I went looking for any other ewes that may have snuck under trees, around corners and the like. Chased the horse out…. Went back to the gate. But I can hear a frantic lamb back in the orchard so off I go (gee, this torch better not run out of battery) and find a lamb from the next door paddock running up and down the fence. On the wrong side. Must have lain down beside the fence and rolled under. Rats. Big lamb, in the dark and I’ve got a torch.

Up the fence.

Down the fence.

Up the fence. (Patience is a virtue..?!)

Make a grab for it. Miss. Another grab for it in the corner and manage to somehow snag it properly. Lift the heavy sucker up and over the fence so it can be reunited with its mother.

Okay, walk back, check no other lambs and no horse. Right.

Get through the gate. Put horse-proof lock in place.

Walk back towards the garden gate where the bottles are still waiting to be taken back to the house.

Clomp, clomp….

Horse…… you’d better not be in the garden?!

Find the garden gate pushed open…. argh. Why didn’t I latch it on my way out?! (I wanted an early night tonight?!)

She’s gone to the left of the house, so I go around the other way to try intercept her before she gallops over the lawn. Sneaky wench is enjoying some green grass. How do I stop her thinking this is a wonderful game and just going round and round the driveway??

Hmmmm. I start making weird snorting noises (scary…?) and flick/flash the torch as well as toss a little stick up into the tree above her. Snort, snort.

Run, run!

Thankfully, she ran OUT of the garden (and was heard to be trying to let herself out the back gate which HAD been horse-proofed)

Mutter, mutter…. stomp back down the hill, over the gully, up the hill and then just crawl into bed.

LOL

Today though had a cold and frosty, foggy start.

Alas, after doing the rounds – all well in the Big Paddocks – I got back to discover that one of the lambs I’d moved the night before had indeed been nabbed by a fox. 🙁 I’ve never had a problem with behind the house before but I do normally try and have alpacas “surrounding” everything. Of course, I’d had to shift the alpacas from that paddock into a Big Paddock.

Bastard things. Hate foxes.

And then, this morning, there was a newborn Castledale whose young mother could only count to one. And this lamb wasn’t “one”. 🙁

So now we have teeny, tiny Tina. All 2kg of her. Most of the Drysdales and Leicesters would be 4-6kg so she is an absolute titch. (The size XS rug is almost too big!) She looks a bit bedraggled in the pic – that’s what happens when you’re dumped in the dirt. At the moment she’s a very special Princess and has a box in the laundry. The other pet lambs are a bit rough and rowdy for a tiny newbie and she needs more feeding than they do. And I don’t want to go over there really late. Hopefully she doesn’t start yelling at 2am. LOL

And then the afternoon was rounded off with a couple of new Drysdale lambs. 🙂