Winter Lambing is Under Way
It is always an estimation when it comes to due date for my flock. I let my Rams loose on the ladies for approximately 51 days (three heat cycles of 17 days for my ewes) and count forward from there. I never know exactly what date is 147 days since conception, so the best I get is a general 1 and half month window of lambing.
It seems to have been the trend in the past that no matter what date I thought was our first possible lamb data, the girls always decided to “pop” 10 days early.
I have done 3 large scale lambings to this point (I got the majority of my flock in summer 2023) and I like to think each one has been better than the last. And this time, I finally got the due date right, my first set of lambs came just one day early! A perfect set of twin rams with a loving, eager mother.
It feels so good to start lambing off on a high note. My very first lambing, winter 2023, began with one stillborn lamb born in the middle of a snowstorm outdoors in the pasture. It was an awful start and the rest of that lambing didn’t exactly go great either. I moved the flock into the barn to avoid future weather related disasters, but even then I lost a ton of lambs.
The second lambing went a little better. I had moved the girls into the barn earlier (although it was May and there was no risk of snow) but this time around I had a lot of issues with the mothers. I had several ewes prolapse, I had to help pull out many of the lambs, and just when I thought I was in the clear, the lambs were a month old and moved out to pasture with their mothers, I lost a couple more ewes to worms! There are many things I should have done better for that round of ewes. I should have given them better nutrition prior to breeding to encourage more twins or triplets (the mothers nutrition before breeding is often a huge factor in determining the number of lambs they will conceive and keep). More lambs means smaller lambs which could have prevented some of the prolapsing. I also should have just kept the flock in the barn until weaning time which would have prevented my worms issue all together. But the temptation of warm early summer sunshine was just too good to pass up. Looking back on it now I have a lot of lessons to take with me into my future lambings an especially my future spring lambings. I try not to get too caught up on what I should have done and instead focus on how I can use that to be better next time.
Lambing number three kicked off in August 2024 and went alright. It was my smallest group of ewes yet, only about 40 to lamb, and they began lambing outside. Somehow magically everything was going great outside and about half of my ewes lambed there before I moved them inside. Moving inside did something awful though because after that so many lambs died within a day of birth or were just born dead. Still haven’t figured out quite what caused that.
So lets see if 4th time is the charm! Looking forward to lots of new life running around the straw in the days and weeks to come.