How is it going, sheep people?

[freewheat]

No one posted for a long time here. We are going to start lambing in 4 weeks. The girls are getting ROUND, and we are looking forward to it.

Kato, Bez? What's up?

[kato]

Lambing now. So far so good. Had a close call with disaster yesterday. A ewe seemed to be a little slow lambing, so I went in and had a check. Sure enough, there was a bum and a tail. Straightened him out, which is sure an easier job than with a cow, and hauled him on out. Then she still seemed slow, so I went in again. Yup. Front leg back. So out she came. While I was there anyway, I decided I may as well have another grope around, and there was number three! Easy pull with that one.

The whole family is doing well today. Boy, that could have been expensive!

[freewheat]

Good going and glad to hear! What a reward to have spun those lambs around and out into the world.

We are a week away more or less. Looks like some triplets coming by the bulges. Cleaned out the barn, have the jugs set up, and our family is excited and ready to lamb.

Good luck with the rest!

[Bez]

Finished one group of lambs and they went out on grass yesterday - a small piece of grass but it will be good for a few days. So total on grass at the moment is around 80 or maybe a few more animals counting lambs.

Starting to lamb another group of about 45 ewes this month - getting the barn ready for them to lamb - should start anytime now.

And have the third group of about 50 in the back of the shop in a big pen - not sure what to do with them yet - short on pasture this year but would like them out on grass. I plan to try and find them some grass but the fence is always an issue. And around here it is not coyotes that are trouble - it is dogs. Everything from Pookie the lap dog to Mikey the German Shepherd - been solving a lot of problems lately with no casualties to the flock. But a few folks might be missing their friends. And we do indeed live a long way from anyone - it is miles not metres.

Otherwise we are doing well - calving is done and we will be sending a lot of cows to market as well this fall - have all the old girls and bad udders sorted - in the end I suspect we will be seeing some big changes here over the next year.

Was planning to put up a building but lost the argument - now we are tiling land instead.

Off to check the animals

Best to all.

[freewheat]

Three lambs yesterday. A set of twins, and a big single girl. Two girls and a boy. The first time we have had a positive girl to boy ratio in three years of the critters. Hopefully it holds. Hard to grow with a bunch of rams...

[freewheat]

Our first set of triplets ever last night! Something to see indeed. Amazing.

[freewheat]

12 lambed ewes, 24 lively lambs. Half done our little flock. But with 15 girls, and only 9 boys, growth is occuring. Next year, at this rate, we could be lambing out 45 ewes.

Off to seed, so I can go build more fences! ha!

[kato]

All done! Finally. We had a fence incident last summer, and Mr. Ram got in. I was afraid of a bunch of lambs coming in the middle of the cows using the barn for calving, so they all got some Estrumate. It worked, as far as I can tell. Two ewes lambed right in the middle of calving, and had to live in nooks and crannies in the barn. They both had twins though. The lambing was drawn out compared to last year, but the results were surprising. Thirteen ewes..... Two singles, six sets of twins, and five sets of triplets. It's Lambageddon out there! I thought our lambing percentage would drop because of all the nonsense, but it sure didn't. I am happy.

[freewheat]

5 triples, wow. We had one triplet set, but it was cool cuz it was our first. Have your ewes been raising them ok? Ours seems to be feeding two well, and not feeding one as heavily, but they are all doing fine.

We have one runty ewe left to lamb. We ended up with 22 ewe lambs, so our flock is officially doubled. We are sheep people now! lol Did I mention we need to build fences?? And seed some hay?

Glad to hear of your success, kato.

[kato]

So far everyone is doing well. Being a tiny flock, I do have the luxury of leaving the triplet families in pens for longer than a lot of people do. That seems to make a difference. When we kicked them out to the big sheep pen it was mayhem! Nobody could find their moms, and we could hear about that for a couple of days. It was hilarious. What a bunch of whiners. They've all settled down now and are carrying on. I am thinking this may be the year to creep feed.

We need to build more fences too. I have been using portable electric net and moving them all over the place up to now. This works well for rotating the pasture, but it also means I have to drag water out to them. That is a pain. We are working on a high tensile electric fence now, so at least the perimeter is permanent, and they can get back to the water bowl at the shed.

Does anyone have experience with this type of fence? How many wires are needed? It doesn't have to be predator proof, because Bob the ultimate sheep donkey is on patrol, and he's got the local coyotes trained.