Jacob

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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.
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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.

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Shearing 2019

Our sheep were scheduled to be shorn last weekend but with a cold snap this past week, we decided to postpone until this weekend. All the sheep were cooperative and were shorn without a hitch.

Here’s a timelapse video I took of shearing (about half our flock – I didn’t move the camera when we moved to the opposite end of the barn).

 

I will be skirting fleeces over the next couple days, then sending wool to the mill for processing into roving and yarn. Like us on Facebook or favorite us on Etsy to get updates on when we have the finished roving and yarn available for purchase.

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Kate gets a Boyfriend

Kate is Noah’s yearling (lilac, 4-horn) Jacob ewe. He decided that at least for her first breeding he wanted to breed her to Jacob Ram.

We are borrowing a ram from our friends and Noah decided which of their rams he wanted to use last Sunday. Sebastian arrived at our place on Tuesday morning. The first 24 hours with this guy was interesting to say the least….

Kate was nervous around him but distracted by all the fresh grass. As the day went on she seemed more stressed about being taken from her flock, even though she could see them (or maybe more so).

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I brought them in the barn the first night so she wouldn’t keep our neighbors awake with her constant crying. Wednesday morning while I was feeding the other sheep she escaped from the barn and was running around the pasture. Poor Sebastian looked so confused when I coaxed her back into the stall.

I had decided Tuesday night that if she didn’t settle down I would add one of our other ewes into Kate’s & Sebastian’s field. I chose Kathleen since she was already bred by Kai and because she and Kate have been together from last summer until 10 days ago.

After introducing Kathleen to the group in the barn, I let them back out into their little field around my garden. Kate settled down pretty quickly and the girls are getting used to Sebastian.

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Both ewes are still a little wary of Sebastian, but we have seen them grazing together and sleeping relatively close to each other.

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Let’s hope for a healthy Jacob lamb or lambs this spring!