that was lambing
8 May 2008 by colouritgreen
the window for lambing now draws to a close.. if they squeezed any out now they remaining ewes would have had to have been tupped on the ram’s last day, and be a week late too! - is not going to happen…
So - not a roaring success.
Only one out of the three ewes lambed.. she had triplets - not that common in a first timer.. needed help with one, managed the other two herself - but they later died.. despite lots of effort on our part. A very distressing and tiring time indeed. lamb-lagged.
I was told I should toughen up.. that most people would have ‘let nature take it’s course’, that we made it harder on ourselves by trying. We discovered that we would rather stay soft, care, suffer.. because..well thats part of the point of raising our own livestock.. to care.
So what went wrong? why did only two of the ewes get in lamb? I’ve been asking local shepherds. The general consensus is that the ram went in too late. Well yes it was not our plan for him to go in in November.. we were supposed to borrow him in September.. but the foot and mouth restrictions came along and as were were borrowing a ram - we don’t have enough land to keep our own, we were stuffed. As it happens, the ram had other ideas.. broke into the field with his girls in it and the farm we were borrowing from found their ewes tupped earlier than planned. This freed the ram up to come to us in November - and we have got one lamb out of it. So far. I’m not counting any lambs yet until they come back from the butcher in joint shaped bags.. what with blue tongue round the corner and everything.
There is some differences in opinion as to whether our ewes will get into lamb next year.. having missed this chance.. some people say they wont if they miss a year.. but we shall see., we have arranged to borrow the ram again..in September, unless something else crops up to mess up our plans!
so nope not a roaring success, but not a roaring failure either.
None of our ewes died, we got lots of experience, we are one lamb up (so far), and all we lost was sleep.
I wouldn’t have thought that November was too late for the ram to go in, the local sheep farmer always puts his ram in on bonfire night so as most of the bad weather is over by the time he lambs and for the last could of years running I’ve put my goats (not sheep I know but very similar) in kid in my week off over Christmas so am due in a couple of weeks.
well yes - I take your point - in fact ‘bonfire night for all fools day’ is the tradition - and that’s what we ended up doing pretty much. The suggestion is that as teh westcountry is warmer.. breeds have been encuoraged to lamb earlier to allow for good size of lamb by end of summer etc.
but there are other theories on why they did not get into lamb - from bad luck - through to abortion. … who knows. we will try again and take it from there