Jacob

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Lambing Diaries – Week 3

April 9, 2025 – Wednesday

Olive had twins this afternoon!

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!

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Lambing Diaries – Week 2

March 31, 2025 – Monday

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.

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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.

Check back next week for more Lambing Diaries!

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2022 Lambing Round-Up

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.

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Miss Smartypants

Kate has been jumping over the garden fence from atop my compost pile to get into my garden, and exiting from the corner of the garden behind the black composters. Noah and I reinforced those parts of the fence with cattle panels, but Kate had another hidden entrance, unbeknownst to us.

I watched her after letting the sheep out of the barn so she could show me where he secret entrance is. Good thing we have another cattle panel to block this part of the fence too!

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Virtual Field Trip

With schools closed because of the Covid-19 virus, we decided to host a Virtual Field Trip to complement any learning your children are already doing from home. We broadcast the field trip live on Facebook Friday, March 20th, but also wanted to post it here for anyone not on Facebook.

We hope you enjoy this, and please post any questions you have in the comments below.

We will be hosting another virtual field trip on Wednesday, March 25th live on Facebook at 1pm EDT. The topic of this broadcast will be Eggs.
Continue reading →

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The Lambs are Growing

The lambs’ first time outside is always exciting as they explore their new surrounding and really stretch their legs.

The lambs love racing around the fields in the evenings, especially when they’re little. It’s always fun to watch them run and bounce through the pasture.

It’s nearly time to wean the lambs from their mamas and the have grown so much over the past 3 months!

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This is the end of May and the lambs are 3-8 weeks old.

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Here are the lambs a week later. Maya (the Jacob lamb) is 3 weeks old and her horns are peeking through her hair.

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Maya is 5 weeks here, and Maggie is 2.5 weeks old.

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The mamas and lambs are loving the green pastures, and hang out in the shade during the hottest parts of the days.

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Lambs 2019

Lambing lasted about a month this year. We had 12 lambs (plus one stillborn lamb) born to 8 mamas.

Kathleen was the first to lamb with her first lambs. She had twin ewe lambs on April 3rd.

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Fiona and Bertha both gave birth on April 7th. Fiona had twin ram lambs…

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…and Bertha had a single ram lamb.

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Erin gave birth to a ram and a ewe on April 11th.

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Esme waited until I was in Allentown setting up for the Allentown Fiber Festival on April 12th to have her twin rams.

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Coco had her twins the next day, on April 13th, but the ewe was stillborn and only the ram survived, despite our efforts to revive the ewe lamb. With everything happening so fast, I never took a birth photo of her lamb but did get this one with our barn cam.

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Kate gave birth to her first lamb – a ewe – on April 17th. We were so happy that she lambed before Noah was at school since Kate is his sheep.

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Izzy was our last ewe to lamb and she gave birth to a single ewe lamb on May 5th.

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Kathleen’s ewe lambs, Coco’s ram, and both of Erin’s lambs will be available in early – mid July.

If you are interested in purchasing any lambs please contact us by email or phone, or on our farm Facebook page for more info.