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On Monday morning this Scottie gave birth to twin lambs, totally unaided. She had a tup (the lamb stood up) and a ewe (the one laid down) lamb. They get the prize for the cutest of this year's lambs
Then this morning Allium produced twins, the tup lamb (the one of the left) had to be helped out by Tim, followed by a ewe lamb, which too had to have a bit of a help as she was stuck by her back legs. The final count of lambs is 41, 26 tup lambs, 15 ewe lambs. We actually had 43 lambs but two were born deformed and so we had to humanly destroy them, not a nice task.The other Scottie that was left to lamb, Tim and I turned her over to see if she had any milk in her udder. She had very little or no udder to speak of and a quick feel of her stomach confirmed that she was not pregnant. We will put her to the tup again this November to see what happens as it has been a tough winter.
We have one other ewe and her lamb in the barn, it's a Scottie with her tup lamb that was born last Thursday evening (Tim had to assist). Feeding up on Monday night we noticed her lamb was not at all well, so into the barn they both came. A quick jab of antibiotic and a warm barn usually dose the trick, but to be safe I rang the vet just to check and he suggested another dose of Watery Mouth medication as he may not have got a lot of his mother's colostrum. Yesterday he was still with us, but not improving, so I rang a local farmer to come and check the lamb out, and it was a chance comment about Selenium deficiency that everything fell into place. Our land is low in Selenium, so I did a quick dash to the vets for some medication for the "little man". Today he's a lot better, but still has a long way to go.
So tonight we are enjoying a long earned bottle of wine and tomorrow morning the alarm will be turned off!!!!!! But I bet we will be awake at 5am!!!!
3 comments:
Well done - I feel as if I've been through the wringer with you all, reading all your descriptions.
Wonderwool was hard work but fun, as usual - though I had the stress of Pa being poorly in hospital and Ma getting back from Malta a week late on Sunday. But never mind.
Furiously busy on Saturday as people came with money and definite things they wanted to buy. Lots less busy on Sunday, different crowd (even though apparently lots of people did both days) but I ticked away anyway. The food and organisation is always good here. We stayed on the Sunday night in a nearly empty campsite at the showground, treated ourselves to a chinese takeaway, and a much more leisurely drive home on Monday morning. Pity it clashes with your lambing- I think it's much nicer than Woolfest. Oh well, I've got to start planning for that now.
Always a happy event when the lambing finally ends. Our farmer finished just over a week ago, had about 30 seconds rest and is now harrowing and sowing the barley while trying to muck out the winter cattle barns.
All the sheep are out now and the cattle went out a few days ago and they all look quite content with their lot.....
Hi Denise,
Just seen you featured in South West Farmer - it was a piece about the Combi Clamp? We thought about one but were not sure how useful it would be with the cashmeres.
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