Weeks 4 and 5 didn’t bring any lambs, which was expected. Harriet was bred successfully a couple weeks after all the other ewes.
May 4, 2025 – Sunday
Harriet had twin ewe lambs around 4 this morning. She had us fooled, thinking she was going to have triplets! The 1st lamb weighed 8lbs, and the 2nd weighed 9lbs.
Harriet’s udder was so engorged that I milked out some colostrum so the lambs could latch on top her teats better. The colostrum will go into the freezer for any future emergencies.
That’s a wrap on our 2025 lambing season! We had 20 lambs. 9 sets of twins and 2 singles. 16 ewe lambs, 4 ram lambs. 11 Tunis, 3 Jacob, and 6 Tunis/Jacob cross.
I checked on her throughout the morning, and just before I ran to the feed store in the afternoon. By the time I got home from the feed store, she had delivered a ram lamb and was cleaning him.
After a few minutes, she began pushing again and delivered a ewe lamb. Once they were both standing and walking, I made sure they nursed before moving them to the lambing jug.
The ram lamb weighed 8.55lbs and the ewe lamb weighed 8.1lbs.
April 11, 2025 – Friday
Maya had a 10.65lb ewe lamb just before 5am this morning!
I remember waking up around 3 or 4am to check on the monitor only to see Maya laying contentedly in the stall. The next thing I know I was waking up at almost 5am to her baaing to a lamb.
I didn’t check yet to see how many horns she has or if she’s lilac or black and white. Maya is a very protective mama and was upset enough by me weighing her lamb.
We let Kate and her lambs out of the jug and put Maya and her baby in, so there was a bit of confusion for a couple minutes until everyone settled down.
Edit: the ewe lamb is a 2-horn dark lilac lamb.
April 11, 2025 – Friday
Luna totally surprised us this afternoon with twins ewe lambs! She wasn’t due till Sunday and she didn’t look ready to lamb at feeding this morning, so I wasn’t checking the monitor very often today.
I was packing up Etsy orders and watching the livestream of Noah’s baseball game this afternoon, and all the sudden I heard what sounded like newborn lamb cries so I rushed out onto the deck. Luna was out in the barnyard with 2 brand-new, almost dry lambs. One lamb was 7.85lbs and the second was 7.2lbs.
Harriet is our last pregnant ewe and she’s due around May 1st.
Check back in early May for our final entry for this year’s Lambing Diaries!
I noticed Prim seemed to be in early labor around noon so I kept an eye on her to watch her progress. Some pushing by 1pm but no water sac. I did a quick examination and felt the sac. Prim is more nervous about being touched while in labor so I had to halter and tie her.
After a while I decided to give her space and watch her from the kitchen window, hoping that would help her labor progress, but it didn’t. She didn’t want to go back into the barn so I lured all the mamas in with some grain.
Once haltered again I examined her again and felt a little tail. Dave held her still(ish) for me while I found the back feet and repositioned the legs so I could pull the lamb out back feet first. After pulling the ewe lamb with my lamb puller, I checked for another. I felt a head so I let Prim rest and clean the 1st lamb for a few minutes.
The 2nd lamb emerged head first, but I was able to get 1 front leg repositioned easily to help pull it out. The lamb was limp when I got her out but began to breathe and move once I pulled the sac from her face.
The 1st ewe lamb weighed 8.65lbs and the second ewe lamb weighed 7.85lbs.
Once both lambs nursed, I milked out some colostrum to freeze for any future emergencies.
April 5, 2025 – Saturday
Kate had twin ewe lambs this morning! She didn’t want to eat breakfast around 8sm, so I went out to the barn to check on her. Maya kept bothering her, so we opened the stall door and let her wander around the barn aisle.
The first lamb was born around 10:30. She’s the one on the left in the 1st photo. She weighed 7.25lbs and has an odd spot on her right rear leg that looks like raw skin. I’m researching epitheliogenesis imperfecta, but I’m not sure if that’s what it is. I can’t tell if there’s actually no skin or just raw skin. It’s definitely in the shape of her other spots.
The second lamb was born shortly afterwards and weighs 8.4lbs. Both lambs seem to be lilac or dark lilac but we’ll be able to tell better as they get dried and cleaned. I think 1 is a 4 horn and 1 is a 2 horn.
We added a wall of straw around the lambing jug because Maya tried multiple times to clean the lambs through the panels.
Edit: I applied a medicated cream to the first lamb’s red spot after she was clean and dry. even though it seemed like it wasn’t raw skin anymore. After a day or so, you could barely see where the spot was, and now the area looks and feels normal. I’m wondering if a blood clot or something got stuck in her fiber during or before birth.
April 8th
April 16th
April 6, 2025 – Sunday
Qi’ra surprised us with twins tonight! I thought she was too slender to be carrying twins, but she fooled me.
She showed us she was getting ready to give birth by separating herself from the other ewes most of the day. When I checked the monitor around 8pm or so, I saw her pushing. I went out to the barn and watched her for a while. When it was obvious she was tiring, I helped her deliver the lamb. She’s a first-time mama and wasn’t sure what was happening most of the delivery, but once the lamb made noise, she began cleaning it off.
We moved her and the ram lamb to the lambing jug, and I noticed she had another set of hooves visible. Her first lamb was up and nursing, and Qi’ra wasn’t pushing the second lamb out. I wiggled the feet around, and she soon delivered the ewe lamb.
The ram ram weighed 9.65lbs, and the ewe weighed 8.05lbs. They had so much energy that once they got their footing, they didn’t stop moving.
For a first-time mama, Qi’ra is pretty relaxed and is taking good care of her babies.
Odette kicked off lambing season today at dinnertime with an 8lb ewe lamb born butt-first. I found her mid-labor and was hesitant to check the position of the lamb because I thought she was still in early labor.
After about 30-45 minutes went by with no water sac emerging, I prepared to check on the lamb’s position. As Odette pushed, the lamb’s butt became visible and I knew at this point repositioning the lamb would be difficult. I wiggled the lamb’s hips with the next contraction and was able to deliver the hips and rear legs. I pulled the rest of the lamb quickly before she could start to breathe while still in the amniotic fluid. She was limp for a few seconds, but after I got her airways clear, rubbed her chest, and Odette started cleaning her, she started to breathe.
March 27, 2025 – Thursday
Kathleen had twins ewe lambs just before 3am. The first was 9.3lbs and the second was 9.4lbs.
I noticed her acting like she was close to labor around 7pm last night and checked on her every hour or 2. I decided to go to the barn around 2am because she was pushing but not progressing. After a quick internal, I determined the lamb’s presentation was good but she was probably just big. Fast forward a bit and the water sac emerged along with feet and a nose. Several minutes after the first lamb was born, Kathleen delivered a second, also normal presentation.
Mama and lambs are in the lambing jug now and both lambs have nursed. Kathleen enjoyed some warm water with molasses, a little grain and has lots of hay to eat while her lambs nap.
March 30, 2025 – Sunday
We woke up to twins from Ophelia, all dried, nursed and happy. The brown lamb is a ewe and is 7.35lbs. The black lamb is a ram and is 7.25lbs.
March 30, 2025 – Sunday
A ram and a ewe for Opal!
I checked on the monitor before I went to bed and saw she was in labor, so I headed out to the barn. The ram was born first and is 8lbs. The ewe was born very soon after the ram and is 6lbs.
Both are up and have nursed, and I’m going to bed.
I’ve been neglecting posting here, and have been posting more to facebook and instagram lately. 2022 had its ups and downs for the flock, but most things went well. We had 18 of lambs born – 3 Jacob, 2 Tunis/Jacob and 13 Tunis.
Molly, Maya and Kate were bred to Rival. Molly had a ram and ewe,
Maya had twin rams,
and Kate had a single ram.
Luna, Erin, Lia and Kathleen were bred to Marvin. Luna had twin ewes,
Erin had a single ram,
Lia had a ram and a ewe,
and Kathleen had a single ewe.
Harriet, Natalie, Lexi and Izzy were bred to Apollo. Harriet surprised us with ram/ewe/ram triplets,
Natalie had twin ewes,
Lexi, sadly, lost her ewe lamb during pregnancy, and Izzy had a ram and ewe.
For our 2022 breeding season we only used Apollo and Marvin. 14 girls are pregnant and our 1st due date is March 28th. I hope to post about births here, but you can always see daily updates on FB and IG.
Coco went into labor Saturday morning, May 2, 2020. The first lamb, a ram, presented butt-first and I was unable to turn him to get his legs out first. I slowly delivered him so not to damage Coco. The 2nd – a ewe – was a normal presentation (head and 2 front legs) and was born without any issue. The 3rd was also a ewe and was presenting with only 1 leg forward; her head and other front leg were turned away from the birth canal. I live-streamed the lambing on Facebook Live once we realized there was a 3rd lamb. You can see the video below: (it is graphic and stressful)
After the 3rd lamb was born we made sure they all nursed, got weighed and navels dipped in iodine.
It became clear by the afternoon that Coco didn’t want to feed the ewe lambs – only the ram.
So we brought the girls in the house for a while…
but decided that they needed to be with Coco as long as she didn’t hurt them.
We added a couple boards in the jug we had Coco and the ram lamb in so that the girls could get away from Coco if needed.
We held Coco so the girls could get some colostrum, plus we supplemented with bottles of colostrum we had frozen the previous year (in case of emergencies) mixed with colostrum we milked from Coco. We continued to milk Coco for a few days until her milk supply had slowed for only 1 lamb.
After a couple days in the jug, we let Coco and her lambs out with the other mamas and lambs. She watched over all 3 of her babies, and we went out a few times a day with bottles to feed the girls.
We were thankful that she didn’t totally reject the girls because lambs learn so much from their mothers, including what is edible and how to interact with other sheep.
Over the 3 months of bottle feeding we decided to keep one of the girls that had become such a love bug. We named her Natalie and she is growing into a beautiful sheep.
In discussing rams, I feel it necessary to first warn you about rams in general. Rams can be dangerous, and after years of breeding sheep we have decided that there are too many good-tempered rams out there to risk harm in keeping an aggressive ram on our premises. We have also seen that demeanor is a heritable trait. One year we bred half our ewes to our 1st ram, Zeus – an aggressive ram, and half to our 2nd ram, Karloff – a sweet and gentle ram. As both their lambs grew close to weaning age (3 months) we could pick out which ram lambs were Zeus’s or Karloff’s by how they watched us and acted toward us. No matter how correct or beautiful a ram is, he’s not worth the risk of injury to you or the risk of passing on those aggressive traits in his offspring.
Breeding sheep can be done in multiple ways. Shepherds who are wary of keeping a ram on their farm full-time may choose to lease a ram for the breeding season or send their ewes to another farm to be bred. A few choose to artificially inseminate (AI) their ewes. Many other shepherds prefer to keep only 1 ram on their farm and trade or purchase a new ram when they deem it necessary. There are still other shepherds who keep a couple to several rams on their farm.
We have had between 1 and 3 rams on the farm at once over the years. Keeping a single ram doesn’t mean he should be alone, and experts warn that keeping a ram by himself may cause him to become aggressive. A wether (castrated male) is a great companion animal for the single ram. The wether will keep keep him company and won’t fight with the ram for dominance.
If you plan to keep more than 1 ram on your farm at a time and don’t want to or don’t have room to keep them in separate areas, you will need to introduce them in a small pen or stall – like a lambing jug (stall).
Tunis rams Marvin & Apollo with Babydoll wether Leibe getting acquainted in a lambing pen
When rams fight for dominance, they back up, then run and headbutt (or ram) each other. By putting them in a small area you’re taking away the space they need to back up and gain momentum before ramming. They will still headbutt each other but you have greatly reduced the risk of serious injury.
This introduction period can take a day or 2. We check on the rams throughout the day to monitor behavior, every couple to few hours – depending on how they are getting along. After they work our their pecking order we send them out to pasture, but we still check on them a few times a day at first. If we witness fighting, they go back into a stall for another day. **If you introduce rams in hot weather – put a fan on them. They will be hot from pushing each other around.**
Sometimes rams can’t get along, and need to be kept separate. You would need to decide if you have room to meet those needs on your farm.
Now that you have your rams together, you may think they will always get along. This, however, is not the case. Anytime the rams are apart for a period, they need to be reintroduced in the same way. i.e., after breeding season. It is also necessary to pen them after shearing. Although they both smell the same, they look very different and need time to assert dominance in a safe space.
After weaning, we sometimes move our ram lambs to the ram pasture. We bring the adult rams and lambs together in the barn first to see how they react to each other. The adult rams may not react to the lambs in the same way they would react to another adult ram. It usually depends on the age and size of the lambs, though. Larger and more mature lambs may need to learn their place in the pecking order of the group, while smaller lambs may naturally assume a lower spot in the order.
Red Rope Farm 