# 21st Feb....3 weeks to go



## Sheepshape (Feb 21, 2019)

By dates my girls have 3 weeks to start lambing. We are  all enjoying some unseasonably mild weather.....but that's about to change at about the time they are due to lamb.

Oh well....here they are. Most seem to be either getting deeper or wider by the day.







The deep

.






The Wide





The permanently ravenous





The girls in the pics. are expecting multiples (mostly twins)....so I'm expecting them to expand quickly.

The waiting always seems to go on for ever.


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## B&B Happy goats (Feb 21, 2019)

Wow....just wow


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## goatgurl (Feb 21, 2019)

deep and wide.  what B&B said, just wow.  can't wait for baby pictures


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## Sheepshape (Feb 22, 2019)

They are looking healthy and happy. Full of pregnancy hormones, they are super-friendly. I love holding them around their big, tight bellies and feeling the little kicks. (Now I'm really thinking about all those legs on the move in there in ewes having multiple lambs!).

I also have a field with 15 girls who are having singletons. They have all lambed before and will lamb outside. The group in the picture will soon be coming in the shed overnight. I have a newly installed 'lamb cam' there whereby I can remotely check them on CCTV (via the TV) rather than having to physically go down there in the dark/mud/ice/snow etc. 

Unfortunately some of the girls have had lice related to a neighbour's sheep coming down from the mountains to which they are hefted.....I think it's cured, but plan to re-treat any which look a bit 'tatty' in the next couple of days (when they come in for a final Se/Co/B12 drench.

Two girls are isolated. One had a tooth abscess and couldn't eat, the other may have Johne's. I'm feeling quietly optimistic about her, though, as her bottom has dried up after Moxidectin and her belly is expanding nicely. She eats very well. I'm hoping she  had some resistant worms and is just an old, skinny girl with a paucity of teeth.

We have the annual 'mud bath' in spite of a fairly dry spell, but, at least I have a clean field for lambs to go out into.

How that serene scene can change to one of disorganised chaos once the inevitable problems start to arise


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## Dale HWA (Feb 22, 2019)

That flock is what i hope to be looking at with mine in 5-6 years time... if we get all ewes it could be sooner but when has that ever happened?!?


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## Sumi (Feb 23, 2019)

things will go smoothly! Can't wait to see the little ones.


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## Sheepshape (Feb 28, 2019)

A week on, and the rain has returned.

My girls continue to expand....



 




 

Super-friendly,too

This is Jo....expecting triplets.



 

And just for good measure some of my chickens....the rooster in the front is called A*^hole!


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## frustratedearthmother (Feb 28, 2019)

Sheepshape said:


> the rooster in the front is called A*^hole!


I've had a few roosters with the same name, lol!


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## Sumi (Feb 28, 2019)

Your girls look so sweet  I was out walking with DS now and saw some sheep in a pasture. They looked so pretty and content out there. No rain here... YET. I expect it soon though. Our spring break is over *sigh*


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## Baymule (Feb 28, 2019)

I love your sheep pictures. Your girls look so soft and fluffy. I want to see pics of them after shearing--if you think they wouldn't be embarrassed being shown in their underwear. 

I've never had a rooster named A*^hole....but I've had some named I-hate-you-and-i'm-going-to-eat-you.


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## greybeard (Feb 28, 2019)

Baymule said:


> I've never had a rooster named A*^hole....but I've had some named I-hate-you-and-i'm-going-to-eat-you.


Pretty sure that's the name my cat has given me........hopefully she will wait until I'm dead.


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## Sheepshape (Mar 1, 2019)

Baymule said:


> Your girls look so soft and fluffy. I want to see pics of them after shearing--if you think they wouldn't be embarrassed being shown in their underwear.


No, they're a bit brazen.....wander about all pink and (relatively) skinny....no shame! I only have two breeds, Beulah Speckled Face (a local breed of hill sheep with a thick, soft fleece....like most of the ones in the pics. above, fleece used in knitwear and good-quality carpets), and Blue Faced Leicester....huge girls with bowed noses and silky, ringlet fleeces whose wool is used in fine knitwear (like the  girl in the last of the first set of pics. towering over the others. The girls have been getting Se/Co/B12 regularly and it seems to have had a good effect on their fleeces.



Baymule said:


> I've never had a rooster named A*^hole....but I've had some named I-hate-you-and-i'm-going-to-eat-you.




A*^hole has an interesting history. I hatched him from 6 hatching eggs I bought....Gold Partridge Brahma. 5 eggs candled 'good' at day 10. Then,6 days before due hatch date, and we had a power-outage for 8 hours due to replacement of overhead cables.The 5 eggs were shifted to our old stove top, where I attempted to keep them up to temperature. They got WAY too warm.....3 were partially cooked. On the day following the power outage I candled the two survivors......and dropped the egg containing A^*hole! Big crack in shell, but inner membrane intact. I found the only nail varnish in the house (bright pink) and sealed the egg. 4 days later and out came A^*hole...healthy and noisy. I had intended to call him James......sort of posh name, posh bird etc. He grew into the huge and beautiful bird I have now, but somewhere along the way developed a mean streak. One day, whilst feeding the sheep, he came at me from behind. Now I am the world's softie with animals, but THAT I won't have. I kicked him, fair and square, shouting 'You A^*hole'  and he shot into the air....since which time he has been called A^*hole. He has attacked a couple of other folk and my dog (several times), but he had never gone for OH who deemed him to be the finest example of the breed he had ever seen, a 'potential show winner', and 'just a bit spirited'. All that changed a few days ago when OH was bending over the ATV, fiddling with the engine, and A^*hole attacked from behind. NOW A^*hole is living on borrowed time as 'Son of A^*hole' has all of his looks,a crow that is gloriously like a foghorn (he stays in the sheep shed 200 yards from the house and no near neighbours),and NONE of his attitude. The dog will enjoy his big, posh a^*e!


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