Sheep

LambMetrics – 8th August 2021

August 8, 2021 by Wendy Beer

#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 0
Total Lambs Born: 19
Drysdale lambs (live total): 12
English Leicester lambs (live total): 4
English Leicester X lambs (live total): 0
Total Sets of Twins born: 7
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 11
Total ram lambs: 8
Ewes lambed /70: 12 (17.1 %)
Lamb % : 133 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 3 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

Castledale & Merino Flocks

Born today: 2
Total Lambs Born: 9
Merino lambs (live total): 0
Castledale lambs (live total): 9
Total Sets of Twins born: 4
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Ewes lambed /62: 5 (8.1 %)
Lamb % : 180% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 0 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

NOTABLE MIDWIFERY TALES:

Just 1 set of Castledale twins born today. You’d think that they all would have taken advantage of the beautiful weather but no. Odds are they will wait until the rain comes..!!

Spent a fair bit of the day between chores like bottle feeding lambs and cleaning maternity/hospital pens.

Found 2 of the older lambs with wounds on their heads at first light and I know the fox wasn’t in there – one wound is definitely a peck. Grrrrr….. that means it was a “crow” (Australian Raven). They can be callous things. Even healthy animals can be at risk if they are in the mood. Those wounds go septic very very fast. One thing after another this year!

In all the to and fro I forgot to take new pics of the lambs.

I did manage to get a pic of the other shed “resident” though who was doing an inspection after my clean up. Not sure if she was impressed ….

Now I’m off to do another feed, another paddock inspection and then I get to have an early night as the Assistant Midwife is on night duty tonight. 😀

LambMetrics – 6th August 2021

August 6, 2021 by Wendy Beer

#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 3
Total Lambs Born: 17
Drysdale lambs (live total): 10
English Leicester lambs (live total): 4
English Leicester X lambs (live total): 0
Total Sets of Twins born: 6
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 11
Total ram lambs: 6
Ewes lambed /70: 11 (15.7 %)
Lamb % : 127 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 3 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

Castledale & Merino Flocks

Born today: 2
Total Lambs Born: 7
Merino lambs (live total): 0
Castledale lambs (live total): 7
Total Sets of Twins born: 3
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Ewes lambed /62: 4 (6.4 %)
Lamb % : 175% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 0 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

NOTABLE MIDWIFERY TALES:

Well, I must say I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night!

Nothing like lying there in the dark and listening to every burp, fart, baa, groan and snuffle from over 100 sheep…. LOL

Thankfully, I had a companion in the tent. (Who didn’t set foot outside the tent the entire night! haha)

A vixen was heard at one point (approx 3.15am) along with the clamour of Floss and Maggie barking….

The good news is that along with the lack of sleep and the staggering around the paddock numerous times at ungodly hours there were no further fox problems last night. (Only another 3 weeks to go….. )

So here are some happy snaps.

One of the English Leicester ewes had mismatched (size) twins and is a bit unsure about the small and unsteady one but hopefully another bellyful of colostrum before bed will settle things.

The other is a lovely black, English Leicester EWE lamb out of an ex-bottle lamb. Yay! Good girl, Squeak!

(The Friends of Beersheba Farm subscribers may be competing to get in first on who is naming sponsoring that lass!)

Early to bed tonight! (After I do a quick check, and feed.)

LambMetrics – 5th August 2021

August 5, 2021 by Wendy Beer

#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 8
Total Lambs Born: 14
Drysdale lambs (live total): 11
English Leicester lambs (live total): 1
English Leicester X lambs (live total): 0
Total Sets of Twins born: 5
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Total ewe lambs: 10
Total ram lambs: 4
Ewes lambed /70: 9 (12.8 %)
Lamb % : 133 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 2 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

Castledale & Merino Flocks

Born today: 5
Total Lambs Born: 5
Merino lambs (live total): 2
Castledale lambs (live total): 3
Total Sets of Twins born: 2
Total Sets of Triplets born: 0
Ewes lambed /62: 3 (4.84 %)
Lamb % : 166% [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 0
Losses: 0 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

NOTABLE MIDWIFERY TALES:

It’s been a challenging couple of days. As a result this blog post will be the slightly direct-to-the-point kind.

The weather has been quite mild (thankfully) which has been kind on human and sheep.

Yesterday started poorly from the outset when it became very quickly obvious that this is going to be a bad year for fox activity. Unfortunately, this introduced pest predator has a devastating impact on small native wildlife and on lambs.

The first lambs born the other day were targeted. One had perished – her throat ripped out – the other was ill due to the wounds on her head. (The foxes aim to crush the skull.)

The ill one is currently still in the shed with her mother and we are having to milk the ewe and bottle feed the lamb because she can’t suck the ewe’s teat at present.

She’s had wounds treated, antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory and there has been some improvement. Thankfully. She’s a little sweetie.

The other loss was an English Leicester ram lamb. One of newborn twins, it appears a fox has grabbed it whilst the mother was occupied with the ewe lamb. 🙁

Add to that a suspected case of pneumonia in a lamb born the other day and the hospital pens are full.

And that was just in the Twins group.

Last night a few changes were made – basically we’re camping out there with the sheep now.

Yesterday there were several lambs born in the Singles Group.

Today, down in the Singles group two of the lambs were discovered had been wounded by foxes. The alpacas in that paddock (all 6 of them….) are very antsy about dog-like critters.

So tonight? more camping and the Singles mob has been moved closer to the house/sheds for the night.

And to change the subject — do Echidnas “nest” ?? Because one seems to have set up shop in the hay shed… lol

Hopefully I can get a blog in tomorrow!

PS. I’m not a fox lover.

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

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:

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.

LambMetrics – 6th September 2020

September 6, 2020 by Wendy Beer

#LAMBMETRICS for the day

Drysdale & English Leicester Flocks

Born today: 0
Total Lambs Born: 113
Drysdale lambs (live total): 52
English Leicester lambs (live total): 38
English Leicester X lambs (live total): 14
Total Sets of Twins born: 36
Total Sets of Triplets born: 1
Total ewe lambs: 59
Total ram lambs: 54
Ewes lambed /77: 76 (98.7 %)
Lamb % : 137 % [live]
Assisted/Dystocias: 10
Losses: 9 [lamb]; 0 [ewe]

Notable Midwifery tales:

Still nothing.

With “no action at the station” there were a few more lambs tagged and tailed this morning.

Sun was shining.

Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.

PS. Thanks for the kind enquiries about Floss. Still having some issues with a high temperature but working on that. Off to the vet again in the morning.

Sheep

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