# Hope *finally* lambed!  twins! (pics, post #5)



## patandchickens (Apr 10, 2011)

Wouldn'tcha know. Last night, little miss obstinately-pregnant was showing noooo discernable signs of imminent lambing (other than her personal bits had been pinker than usual for a couple days, on account of which I'd shut her into the 6x10 shed about 48 hours ago) and it was a warm night, so I said 'look, just this once I am going to skip the 2 a.m. check'.

Well, that did it 

I went out there at 5 a.m. after walking the dog, and she has two little lambs in there   They were dry and fairly frisky and clearly had practice with feeding, so I would guess they were probably born around midnight. A boy and a girl.

Since the choices are "concieved on the date she was marked and record-breakingly postmature" or "conceived one cycle later just before I changed the crayon, and at the early end of the lambing-date range" I am basically positive it's the latter. I mean, they're twins; and also they look a bit small and less-developed. So, take home lesson is to change my crayon color a couple days earlier, next time 

No pics yet, as I forgot to bring the camera out this morning and it is now dark and raining (and supposed to be t'storms all day -- maybe Hope was *trying* to lamb in this nasty weather but just went a bit early <g>), but will post 'em when I got 'em. Not that they're all that exciting, just two generic white lambs, but still cute 

Anyhow my 2011 lambing season is now officially over, such as it was  Thank you VERY MUCH to aggieterpkatie and ksalvagno and bossroo, and everyone else, who have put up with me dithering about 'are they pregnant' and 'why are they not having lambs yet' and all that, it really was very helpful and now that I've been thru it once I feel like I have a much better grip on things.

(Remind me NEXT spring that I said that... )

Pat


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## jhm47 (Apr 10, 2011)

We haven't had sheep since our children graduated from 4 - H, but in my past experience, I learned that lambs come when they are supposed to come.  The ewes will usually do a great job of cleaning them, and the lambs will almost always learn to suck on their own.  The biggest problems we had were when we tried to lamb out about 15 ewes without shearing them.  Ewes lambed outside in the cold, the lambs froze to death quickly, and the lambs that we did save started to suck on balls of wool.  They would suck happily on a ball of wool and starve to death.  We never did that again, and had great success from then on.  We raised huge Columbia sheep, and did quite well with them.  They were a real pain to shear, but we got LOTS of wool from them.


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## ksalvagno (Apr 10, 2011)

Congratulations! Can't wait to see pics.


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## Royd Wood (Apr 10, 2011)

Job well done Pat and just think you will be an old master at this game next year


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## patandchickens (Apr 10, 2011)

Here ya go, we're in a lull between masses of rain so I splorked on out there to make sure they are ok (they are).












Still haven't named them. (Update: now we have -- Heather and Heath [sticking with the botanical theme, the other two lambs being Posy and Willow])

These two have random little chestnut-brown spots on their legs, unlike their cousin Posy whose legs are totally white. But I think I will still do a little bit of marking to tell 'em apart -- am thinking I'll use a smoodge of ram crayon on the left ear of the male, the right ear of the female, and none on Posy... that should make 'em easy to tell from a distance and hopefully not rub off on mom's wool too awful much.

Pat


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## ksalvagno (Apr 10, 2011)

very cute!


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## aggieterpkatie (Apr 11, 2011)

Alright!   Congrats on a very successful lambing season!!    That's great you had twins, and another ewe lamb!


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## jodief100 (Apr 11, 2011)

Very Cute!  I love little lambs.


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