Friday, December 30, 2005

Another Lamb

A yearling ewe had a single last night. A little white ewe lamb. The ewe lamb is out of one of the tunis/romanov ewes I sold to Dave Nackly up in Clinton. Nice ewes after I cleaned them up. This one was the daughter of a romney ram I got in Lodi, NY. That was a trip!

The lamb is small. I figured she'd have another. She cleaned about an hour later. Rosie was looking off and not eating grain at all, so I had to treat her. I stopped at vet's and got Dextrose and some other things to treat her. After two days she is looking better. The lambs are nursing more than I like, but they are almost double in size and the little black one is nibbling grain already.

The second ewe is allowing nursing by the older lamb and her lamb. Have to restrict access of the older one until the new one is more agressive. It did get more colostrum, so it will have a bit of the runs, but I thought I'd give it a chance by grafting onto the second ewe. I'm pretty good at this and it looks like it'll work. The primary reason is the persistance and the first lamb and the health of the new one.

Siobhan was bred AI to one of the Kerry bull straws I got from Plimouth Plantation. The semen technition said that she handled well and thinks it was a good heat. Hopefully old Roger did a good job collecting semen and she takes. Siobhan is the heifer I bought from Sean Stanton a year or so ago. A nice heifer out of his Clover cow. She is handleable.

I showed the technition our Moose cow. I warned him that she is bordering on evil and needed to know if he'd breed her for us. If not, I'll have to bring her somewhere with stocks to have her bred. He said he was game as long as one of us helped. Moose, Clara and Eva all came into heat within 3 - 4 days of each other, so I think we may be able to block them in together for a breeding without using a reproduction protocol.

Rosie had Triplets

Rosie is a Tunis/Romanov ewe. I got her from VT. She has a single last year. I have her ewe lamb in the flock. This year she had triplets. A little brown ram lamb with a white face came first. He was followed by a larger black ewe lamb with a white swirl on her forhead. Very shortly after, a little white ewe lamb was born.

For some reason lambs inhale deeply in cold weather. You have to be careful to make sure that the ewe lambs have all of the gunk cleared off the face as fast as possible. The ewe was good about the first one. I had to help witht he second and while getting clean towels, Jenny helped with the third.

They look good. Rosie isn't eating her grain well, so I am watching for Ketosis.