# Brown Sheeps 2015 Lambing



## BrownSheep (Oct 16, 2014)

Well, it looks like its that time a year again and everybody is putting up lambing threads so I might as well jump in. 

This year was a major fencing extravaganza at our farm. This included taking down the pasture the rams usually summer in. So, the rams have been hanging with the girls since March....That's right March!
We have, pretty much, finished fencing for the year. At the moment we don't have the option of splitting into breeding groups so it's a free for all as to who is breeding who so I'll just give you the run down on the rams. 

First, and foremost in our hearts, is Henry. An ornery devil advertised as a suffolk which he is not. Henry is, to the best of our knowledge, a horned dorset. I can't remember how old he is at the moment, some where between 4-5. The likelihood that Henry got any action is looooow. He got the snot beat out of him back at the beginning of September. He was also wormed with Valbazen which can cause temporary infertility.

Next, is Eli. Eli is a ramboulliet and the largest of our rams. He probably runs about 300lbs and his head is level with my shoulder. He is 3-4 I would guess about 75% of the lambs will be his. 

Penultimately, is Black ram....He's is , if you haven't guessed, black. He's not a huge animal but he is still a young thing, going on two this winter.  He is Eli's son and is a suffolk x rambouillet. He's a nice looking fella and turns out a good moderate sized lamb. He will probably sire the other 25% of lambs. He's a randy guy and is a real busy body with the ladies.... Eli hates him.

Lastly is Little Ram. He is also a Eli prodigy. He's not a super small guy and is comparable in size to Black Ram, but he is just kind of    "eh". I  will actually push to either send him to the sale or butchers when we take the market lambs. He hasn't been actively seeking ewes, which you have to with Eli around. He is the bottom of our totem pole so probably won't sire much if anything as far as lambs go.


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## Baymule (Nov 1, 2014)

Sounds like quite the line-up there! Can you post pics? Eli sounds like an impressive fella!


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## BrownSheep (Nov 3, 2014)

I'm sorry I missed this! 
I won't be home again until Thanksgiving and dont have any good photos. To give you an idea how old my photos of him are, in my profile pic Eli is the ram in the rear. He is about a year old there.


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## BrownSheep (Dec 4, 2014)

Our first lambs were born today. 
Two white ram lambs they were born to a first time black ewe. She doesn't want anything to do with them. Of course my parents are suppose to leave town tomorrow. If she doesn't get with the program we might end up giving the lambs away to my old 4-H leader.


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## Southern by choice (Dec 4, 2014)

I got so excited first reading this and then boom... I am sorry she isn't taking them. Is she in shock? Was it a hard labor/delivery? Are you home on break... I hope she takes them, but glad you have a back up plan. 

Congrats on the lambs!


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## BrownSheep (Dec 4, 2014)

My dad got home right as she passed the after birth. Both of them were cleaned off so I don't think it was too difficult. 
I think it is mainly do to being a first time and the fact they are a different color than her. I don't know about the other sheep but with my sheep when the lambs differ in color from the mother about 1/3 of the time they will reject them. 

I'm not home yet. If they had waited a week my sister and I would only be a day or two away from being home but alas. 
My parents are actually headed up to see me. It's my birthday tomorrow so they're going to come party hardy with me ( aka dinner, a movie, and some shopping). There is a chance they would bring them up and bottle feed them at a relatives house but the real issue is just the demand of feeding them for the next week and a half until we get home.


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## BrownSheep (Dec 4, 2014)

This the only picture they sent me.


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## Southern by choice (Dec 4, 2014)

Now that is adorable!

I have heard that before, probably on here somewhere as far as them being a different color and being rejected.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!


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## purplequeenvt (Dec 5, 2014)

We've had that happen a couple times. A black ewe tried to reject her white lambs. We fooled her by putting them in dark colored coats.


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## frustratedearthmother (Dec 5, 2014)

I'd be rubbing those babies with some black chalk or something, lol!


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## BrownSheep (Dec 7, 2014)

It was a little late to trick her but I'll keep it in mind for next time!
One wasn't doing to well the next day but is hanging in there. His back legs needed braced since his hooves fold back.

My dad ended up bringing them up here. One of my Aunts asked if she could keep them for a while. She doesn't have a fenced yard but she seemed pretty excited. They'll stay in her house in diapers. 
She's baby sat bottle babies in the past for a day or two so I'm confident she will be fine. I'm up here too so if not I'm just a call away. 
She's actually a nurse. I got a text yesterday asking what the RR for lambs was. Took me a solid couple of minutes to figure out that RR was respiratory rate.


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## Southern by choice (Dec 7, 2014)

RR 

Glad you have found help for the time being.


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## Baymule (Dec 7, 2014)

Isn't it great to have family for backup in times like this?


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## BrownSheep (Dec 7, 2014)

That it is!


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## BrownSheep (Dec 13, 2014)

Third lamb born today. A ewe who has a good mama.


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## BrownSheep (Dec 13, 2014)




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## OneFineAcre (Dec 13, 2014)

Comgratulations


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## BrownSheep (Dec 14, 2014)

Another ewe lamb today. Healthy and BIG
Unfortunately, my aunt called and one of the twins bit it. He was pretty failure to thrive and really only made it this far because he had NICU level care are her house. I've come to realize that when our ewes ditch both of their lambs there tends to be something wrong with them. Something that is echoed in nature.


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## Southern by choice (Dec 14, 2014)

Yay on the big and healthy!
sorry  

I have seen that in dogs all my life, I think they just know.
Still always a letdown.


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## BrownSheep (Dec 14, 2014)

Well, I just got back from looking at the remaining twin.  The out look on him isn't that great either. He is depressed and has to be forced to eat. He walks oddly, holds his head low, and overall doesn't act like he should. 

We have him started on antibiotics. He gets probiotics and some electrolytes along with his formula. 

My aunt really has done everything that could have possibly been done. If they had been at home they would have been goners much, much sooner just because we don't have the time to be as dedicated as she is. 

Animals are good at sensing those things aren't they?


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## Southern by choice (Dec 14, 2014)




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## BrownSheep (Dec 22, 2014)

We currently have 9 healthy lambs on the ground- 4 boys and 5 girls. 




More pictures to come.


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## Southern by choice (Dec 22, 2014)

BrownSheep said:


> We currently have 9 healthy lambs on the ground- 4 boys and 5 girls.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


POW material there! 

That is adorable! what a kissable little face!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## Goat Whisperer (Dec 22, 2014)




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## BrownSheep (Dec 22, 2014)

Little Ram lamb from a ewe/ram pair


 
His funny looking sister. You can't tell from this photo but she has a matching spot and her front right shoulder is black.




Singleton ram lamb


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## Goat Whisperer (Dec 22, 2014)

Love the color on the first 2! Beautiful!


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## norseofcourse (Dec 22, 2014)

Congrats on the lambs so far!  They look so sweet.  Sorry about the one twin - is the other one still hanging in there?


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## Baymule (Dec 23, 2014)

They are so cute! Just want to squeeze them!


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## mysunwolf (Dec 23, 2014)

Good thing you don't live over here, or I'd be sneaking them away in the night! They are so stinkin cute!!


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## BrownSheep (Dec 24, 2014)

Thanks everyone!

@norseofcourse, Unfortunately the other twin didn't make it either. Funny how the ewes know .

So not counting those two we have 9 lambs out of 7 ewes. Not really the numbers I want but we have 25-30 more to lamb. Plenty more to bring up our percentages.


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## Parsnip (Dec 26, 2014)

Cute lambs! Love the coloring on them!!!!

CUTE.


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## BrownSheep (Dec 27, 2014)

Tiny, tiny, triplets this morning. One unfortunately died of hypothermia shortly after we got him inside. The remaining two ewes were doing ok. It didn't get above freezing the entire day. The smaller ewe ( smallest of all three) just couldn't keep herself functioning in the cold. We got some colostrum and brought her in for some TLC. She'll stay inside tonight at least. The mother is actually a great momma but they are just too little. The strong ewe lamb has a funny half floppy ear, think of a dog. 

We have another ewe lamb that has a bit of a respiratory infection going on. She lost what little weight she had very quickly. Her brother is doing fine though. We gave her a dose of antibiotics, milked her momma, and gave her some supplemental milk and she has pepped up just fine. She'll get another couple doses and maybe extra bottle depending on how she is doing.

I'm acutally back at school for work but will be back and forth the next couple of weeks. I'll be back on Tuesday night and leave on Thursday for example.


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## norseofcourse (Dec 28, 2014)

Sorry you lost one of the triplets - best thoughts for the other two, and the ewe lamb too.


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## BrownSheep (Dec 29, 2014)

Everything seems to be going ok....at least from 100 miles away anyway. 
Another lamb born today. I don't know what it is. Apparently it was born with an undeveloped twin fetus. 

I can tell you we will NOT be lambing in December again. It's not that the weather is any worse than when we usually lamb but that it fluctuates to much. 50's on Monday and teens on Wednesday. It's just too hard on the babies. 
I'm going to aim for May 2016.


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## Southern by choice (Dec 29, 2014)

Sorry Brownsheep.
Have you had this much loss before?


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## BrownSheep (Dec 29, 2014)

We've actually lost way more than this before, but we've never had issues with anything over a day old. Usually, if they are weak we can get them bolstered pretty quickly. If they make it past the day mark they are A-OK usually. 

Not so this year.


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## Bossroo (Dec 30, 2014)

I would have a Necropsy performed on at least 2 dead lambs by a State  University Veterinary Lab.  ... the loss problem could very well be caused by a pathogen or nutritional issues instead of the time of the year.  I have had hundreds of lambs born under variable weather / temperature conditions without such losses. Another thing to consider is the later in the year the lambs are born their growth rate is lowered and one gleans lower return on investment.  Good luck !


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## BrownSheep (Dec 30, 2014)

While I would agree about the necropsies I doubt it is something I could convince my dad to agree to. And if my dad doesn't agree it isn't done 85% of the time. 

Lambing in turbulent weather is doable it just isn't doable for us. While we do have sheds and straw the pens pens pretty extensively. We aren't home for most of the day making chilled lambs a hard thing to catch. 

I know waiting to lamb would most likely lower the growth rate but it is definitely worth it in my opinion. I am not home August-May. Which makes lambing especially frustrating for me and hard on my parents. While I know they do the best they can there are limitation for them. Recently, my dad has been ill for unknown reasons making it doubly difficult. 

Our losses are actually well within what is considered to be normal. It's a frustrating normal but normal all the same.


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## BrownSheep (Dec 31, 2014)

Triplets this morning. They are all doing well. Two ewes and a ram.
One of the other triplet( twins now) has developed an aural hematoma.  I've drained them and will see how they are doing tomorrow. 

Everyone was tagged, banded, and vaccinated today.


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## Southern by choice (Dec 31, 2014)




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## BrownSheep (Jan 1, 2015)

Here is one of the triplets with a 1.5 week old pillow. This one has also developed an aural hematoma do to frost bite thus why the one ear is floppy. We are treating it....It was in the 50's last week. This week it's single digits. 



Here are the other two and Momma ( center...Generally referred  to as Billy's baby)



The lambs like to sleep under this shelf in the house. I tried to get a pic of the four or five that were in there but only got action escape hatch shots instead. You can also see the other lamb with a bit of frost bite on her ears. 



Our big 2 week old rambouillet ewe lamb...and her mama Molly



This is Miley who hasn't been a very good Mama this time around. Her lamb has had issues with hypothermia. We have been giving her supplemental bottles and bringing her in when necessary. The biggest issue I think is Miley likes to keep her outside on the snow and ice instead of in the straw or under the heat lamp.


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## Southern by choice (Jan 1, 2015)

love all the pics!
UGH to your weather... that is awful!

All looking sweet and adorable!


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## BrownSheep (Jan 6, 2015)

We had two singleton ram lambs born a couple days ago. Rosie, a former bottle baby, delivered a ewe lamb yesterday. 
I'm headed home so I'll try to get pictures.


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## BrownSheep (Jan 7, 2015)

Well, we had  a ewe/ram pair born this morning. I think they are a bit premature. It took the ewe lamb 5 hours to get standing. The ram lamb still isn't up. They had no suck reaction with a bottle. Mama is too wild for me to hold them to her by myself. The ewe lamb is up now has eaten a bottle full of colostrum and is following mama around she did get a little bit from mama. The ram lamb is looking a bit better. I gave him a shot of B12. We're going to try a bottle again in a bit. It's warm out again (52)  so I'm not worried about that. 

Miley's struggling ewe lamb is doing much better. I think part of that might have to do with Rosie. Rosie, a former BB, had a singleton ewe but is content to let the other little babies nurse off of her. I've seen her snuggling with her lamb, Miley's, and one of the triplet ewes.


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## Southern by choice (Jan 7, 2015)

Glad for the warmer temps for you! Glad the twins look like they will make it!
And YESSSS we need more pics BrownSheep 

Funny here in NC we are looking at 12 degrees with a WC of 2.
Something is just WRONG in the world!


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## BrownSheep (Jan 7, 2015)

I'm more than happy to share our cruddy weather!

The little ram finally stood up about 10 minutes ago. He's back out side and I think Mama remembers she is suppose to have two. 
I'm off the ball with the photos aren't I?
I should post my instagram account on here.


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## luvmypets (Jan 7, 2015)

Lovely  


I want them all, so sweet and cuddly ❤️❤️❤️


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## BrownSheep (Jan 7, 2015)

Another ewe is lambing


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## luvmypets (Jan 7, 2015)

Hoping for the best


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## Southern by choice (Jan 7, 2015)

Ok so I am old what is instagram?
I don't understand tweetng or whatever it is called either.

... and my customers want me to do a Facebook page 

thinking all pink for you!


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## BrownSheep (Jan 7, 2015)

You jinxed me! 
A big healthy ram lamb! The ewe was way more interested in eating hay than delivering despite the hooves hanging out. 

Instagram is a place you post photos with(or without) captions. You can hashtag it to make it searchable or have a private account where your friends have to ask to see your photos. It's pretty neat. I follow sheep people from Scotland and Australia.


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## Southern by choice (Jan 7, 2015)

Hey I am not a ram! 

Funny "hooves hanging out" but eating... LOL
Yeah that techno stuff... um I don't have a smartphone either.


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## goatgurl (Jan 7, 2015)

thanks for all the pictures.  something about those baby faces just melt your heart.


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## Sweetened (Jan 7, 2015)

Lol southern, you can use the number sign to search things, kind of like star six nine or whatever lol


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## BrownSheep (Jan 16, 2015)

Well, this morning there was a ewe acting like she had delivered or was in the process of delivering ( just making a heck of a lot of noise and staying in the house). I left her in the other shed since she's wild and it would have been more traumatic to move her into the small lamb pen. It's generally easier with the wild ones to wait until they've lambed and then lure them over using the lambs. 

Waited 40 or so minutes and went back out...No, lamb...The ewe in suspect was munching hay. I did find a bit of "goop" in the house and a bit of blood out side. Nothing else. 

I suspect the ewe is either A) early stages of labor ( first timer) or B) the lamb stumbled out side and was covered up in snow. It's snowing pretty hard here. We have 3 new inches this morning and more coming. Well, to test hypothesis B I brought in the best tools for the job. The St. Bernards. After finding a couple of truly delicious pieces of poop and one lamb's tail ( docked) the conclusion is she hasn't lambed yet. I trust their findings since they really do loved to find buried frozen dead stuff. 

One of their proudest finds was a dead cat frozen in a half a foot of ice and covered by 3 feet of snow.


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## luvmypets (Jan 16, 2015)

Hoping for the best


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## Southern by choice (Jan 16, 2015)

Gotta love great dogs! 

Hope she goes soon and keeps her lamb/s warm and dry!

Snow


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## BrownSheep (Jan 16, 2015)

My money is on the ewe being dramatic and the goop I found was from a previous lambing. It was pretty moist looking but snowy sheep laying on it could explain that. Some of the other ewes are still a little weepy from their lambings so the blood was probably from them.


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## BrownSheep (Jan 16, 2015)

Southern by choice said:


> Gotta love great dogs!
> 
> Hope she goes soon and keeps her lamb/s warm and dry!
> 
> Snow



The Saints loooooove the snow.


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## Southern by choice (Jan 16, 2015)

I imagine they live for it! The pyrs love snow, cold, and then unreasonably cold.  My GSD's always have too! It is always so fun with dogs in the snow. AND they don't throw snowballs!


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## BrownSheep (Jan 28, 2015)

So, I haven't been very diligent about keeping this thread updated, have I? 
Lambs are doing much better with the "warmer" weather. Although one of the ewe lambs looks like she'll lose the tip of one of her ears do to frost bite. 
Most of the lambs have been pretty "delicate" looking. Nothing is really wrong with them and they'll probably make somebody good brood ewes. They just are not what we like to look at. They'll grow into smaller ewes. They backs will be around our thighs which is pretty short for us.  We'll be culling pretty hard this year. We like TALL & THICK ewes. 
Most of the ewes that will be going have a good bit of horn dorset which is what the shortness is attributed to. The delicate features are pretty much from the rambouillet. 

We did have a monster lamb born today. I don't know if it a boy or a ewe yet. It's pretty close in size to the 4-6 week old lambs.


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## Southern by choice (Jan 28, 2015)

Aww! yes update more!


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## purplequeenvt (Jan 28, 2015)

That monster has some crazy long legs!


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## BrownSheep (Jan 28, 2015)

It's grandmother weighted #120 at four months....I still miss Big Bertha


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## Southern by choice (Jan 28, 2015)

BrownSheep said:


> It's grandmother weighted #120 at four months....I still miss Big Bertha


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## Goat Whisperer (Jan 28, 2015)

BrownSheep said:


> It's grandmother weighted #120 at four months....I still miss Big Bertha


That is insane! 
What do you think she weighed after she fully matured?  

I love seeing the pics of the lambs.


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## BrownSheep (Jan 28, 2015)

Probably close to 250. She was weighed again at 7 months and was 190....She was a big lazy ewe. She gave me a set of trips and two sets of twins, all girls. Unfortunately, she was very prone to bloat ( at least once a year). Two years ago ( in 2 weeks) she was part of a group that broke into our chicken coop and ate 50lb of grain. We lost her and one other ewe.


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## BrownSheep (Feb 15, 2015)

Well our current lamb count is 25. This was a pretty high mortality year. Most of it stemming from the two weeks were back and forth between below zero and above 40. 

Everyone is doing well now! Thank goodness.

We are about 60/40 ewes to rams, I think. 
2-5 ewes left.


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## mysunwolf (Feb 15, 2015)

So sorry for the bad year. I always hear that a hard season makes for more ewe lambs, but maybe that's just something people make up!

We would love some more photos of the lambs you do have


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## Southern by choice (Feb 15, 2015)

yeah.... pics... you know the rules!


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## BrownSheep (Feb 20, 2015)

How's this for a big baby?
Meet Bert, who was born this morning.






Two little girls who were born last week.



The black one (Nosie) has a white slash going across her nose.
Some of the babies out in the big pen



Also some of my feather children cause I love them


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## Southern by choice (Feb 20, 2015)

The first 2 pics... all I could hear in my head was "She's got legs...."
ZZ Top... it is completely stuck there too! 

Now those really are some legs... "and she knows how to use 'em"... see,  stuck there.


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## Southern by choice (Feb 20, 2015)

Doesn't matter if it is a boy... still stuck! 

Love the turkey pics! 

Just realized you are probably too young to know who ZZ Top is...


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## BrownSheep (Feb 20, 2015)

I don't know many of his songs but I definately know ZZ Top!

We're actually thinking of keeping him as a ram...but we'll give him some time to grow and see.


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## BrownSheep (Mar 3, 2015)

Nosie( the little black one) isn't doing well. She was laying flat out on her side and allowed my dad to go over and pick her up. Our lambs are not friendly so this is concerning. After, my dad got her up she wandered over to nurse a little and he noticed her mom's bag was very small. 
For some reason the ewe is drying up so he made the lamb a bottle which she devoured. 

She actually had a little bit of competition. Bert's mom was a former bottle baby and made a real annoyance of herself when he was feeding the lamb. She was heading butting his arms trying to get to the bottle. She got to finish off the last little bit...This is a ewe who hasn't had a bottle in over two years.


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## goats&moregoats (Mar 3, 2015)

Conrats on your new babies.


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## SheepGirl (Mar 3, 2015)

My cheviot bottle lamb does the same thing! I brought out a bottle of colostrum replacer for my old ewe's lamb and Chevy ran right over and tried to drink it! And of course my lil turd of a goat was out there, too! Poor little lamb was struggling to nurse without interference.


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## norseofcourse (Mar 4, 2015)

Your lambs are big!  Best thoughts for Nosie.  I haven't had a bottle baby yet, but I have noticed that mine have very long memories for anything that has to do with food!


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## sdsmowen (Mar 8, 2015)

Ok newbie question- How do you treat the aural hemotoma? we had twins born 2 days ago when it was -15 and they have swollen ears for the same reason, they are thriving and mom is doing great with them


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## BrownSheep (Mar 8, 2015)

So for one of the lambs we just punctured the hematoma with a needle and syringe. We suctioned out some of the blood and left a couple of extra punctures to allow draining. 
That's the minimalistic way of doing it.


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## sdsmowen (Mar 8, 2015)

Ok, Thank you!


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