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.
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!
This is the end of May and the lambs are 3-8 weeks old.
Here are the lambs a week later. Maya (the Jacob lamb) is 3 weeks old and her horns are peeking through her hair.
Maya is 5 weeks here, and Maggie is 2.5 weeks old.
The mamas and lambs are loving the green pastures, and hang out in the shade during the hottest parts of the days.
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.
Fiona and Bertha both gave birth on April 7th. Fiona had twin ram lambs…
…and Bertha had a single ram lamb.
Erin gave birth to a ram and a ewe on April 11th.
Esme waited until I was in Allentown setting up for the Allentown Fiber Festival on April 12th to have her twin rams.
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.
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.
Izzy was our last ewe to lamb and she gave birth to a single ewe lamb on May 5th.
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.
When we first got into sheep, in 2006, it was recommended to (de)worm sheep at regular intervals then move those sheep to a “clean” field (one that sheep had not been on in at least a couple weeks). There are 3 classes of parasite drugs, each targeting certain types of parasites, and it was also suggested to use a medication from a different class at each interval.
From research and from many farms dealing with parasites that are now resistant to certain anthelmintic drugs, recommendations have changed over the past few years. Shepherds are now advised to test sheep for parasites and (de)worm after sheep have been in an area for at least a few days so that any parasites that aren’t killed by the medication and are expelled from the animal’s body will have a better chance of breeding with “normal” parasites instead of other resistant parasites. Testing can determine what parasites are present and, therefore, what class of drug (if any) is needed.
With this new info and advice about parasite resistance to worming medications, I have been doing fecal tests every 3-4 months on my flock to see if I need to treat them. If I notice certain sheep are acting off I will do individual fecal tests on those sheep. My ewes were last wormed in Jan 2017 and my boys were wormed in the summer of 2017.
If there are obvious signs like pale eyelids (indicative of anemia), I worm with cydectin right away instead of waiting for a fecal because barber pole worms can become a fatal problem very quickly. In this case, I would run a fecal 1-2 weeks after treating to see if a second treatment is needed.
I have noticed that some of our lambs have issues with parasites over their first summer and autumn, and need multiple treatments. This doesn’t necessarily indicate that they will always be susceptible to a “normal” parasite load. I’ve noted that most of those same sheep will not need worming their 2nd year. Once they are bigger they seem to be more resistant to parasites.
Parasites can be an issue to sheep that we bring to the farm or that we sell. The stress of moving to a new place can trigger worms to become more active. Each farm also has different populations of parasites and it can take time for the sheep’s body to adjust to the population of the new farm. Because of this, I recommend checking new sheep more often – doing a fecal once a month or so and checking eyelids weekly.
Questions? Leave a comment below and I will answer as best I can. I urge you to do your own research, though. The Maryland Small Ruminant Page is a great resource run by Susan Schoenian, Sheep & Goat Specialist for University of Maryland Extension. The Ohio State University Sheep Team runs a sheep blog that is very informative. If you don’t have a local vet who is knowledgeable with sheep, Pipestone Veterinary Service can be reached by email or phone for sheep questions. You can also Google topics and find many other resources. If you don’t have a local vet who can run fecal tests, you can send samples to MidAmerica Agricultural Research.
Red Rope Farm 