# WOO! HOO! First Lambs of the Season!  A Ram and a Ewe Lamb…TWINS!



## Legamin (Mar 24, 2022)

I know it is the same thing every year…year in year out…l know that sheep do what sheep are gonna do….BUT IT’S THE FIRST ONES OF THE SEASON!  WOO! HOO!  Boy!  CDT, colostrum feedings, lambing jug, paint mark the family mark….so much to do..oh! Can’t forget to trim the umbilicus and douse in Betadyne!  Tomorrow if they are doing well the castration and tail docking…maybe wait to the third day just before letting them out of the jug…..I’m always a first time Papa!  Nervous Nelly and quivering with excitement.  My wife giggles at this silly 60 year old skinny farmer running around like a head with his chicken cut off but it always seems there is so much to do at once that even when I’m ready it’s a rush!
I ALMOST FORGOT!!!!!   NAMES!?!?!?!?!?!?!?   Any suggestions?  This is the meat flock and not the purebred pen so they don’t have to be regal names…just family names!  The bulk of these lambs are presold as meat flock breeders but since I introduced the parents and helped with the weddings and honeymoons…..I should get to name them, right?!  My children and grandchildren get the first three ewes so THEY get naming rights for them….a grandpa’s duty to teach wise naming skills and all….
Okay…got all my sillies out…my excitement in turning to tiredness and the doubling of chores…but I had to announce the beginning of our lambing season!

Meet the fam.  Marigold, a Leicester Longwool (father: Maelstrom (who lives up to his name) a Blue Faced Leicester.  The little girl looks JUST like Dad!  (Don’t mind the barn that will get painted this year!)  here they have been cajoled into the lambing jug so that bonding and feeding rituals can be established!  Momma looks like there could be three more lambs hiding out in her but she is just ‘healthy’ and ready to nurse.  She successfully pushed out the placenta and is done lambing!





here is where they were born…out in the yard behind the barn.


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## SA Farm (Mar 24, 2022)

I don’t think it matters how long you’ve been doing it - the first ones are always so exciting!
Especially when everything goes well! Good mama!


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## Baymule (Mar 24, 2022)

Awesome! Cutie black lamb! I love lambing, never get tired of it. It is exciting, fun and lambs are so precious! Congratulations on a great start to lambing season!


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## Mini Horses (Mar 24, 2022)

Congratulations...cute little things there.  And one of each color. 😊

It is always exciting, each year.  No matter how many years, just like Christmas!🤣


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## Legamin (Mar 25, 2022)

Baymule said:


> Awesome! Cutie black lamb! I love lambing, never get tired of it. It is exciting, fun and lambs are so precious! Congratulations on a great start to lambing season!


Have an unusual issue with the little black ewe lamb. She was the first up and eager to feed and was doing okay and then slowed and needed supplement.  Now at the 4 hour mark the mamma ewe is pushing her away…this is after she was nursing and doing great!?  My concern is that momma will get more aggressive than simple shoving and harm the new ewe.  I’m struggling with whether to leave her in overnight and weigh her to see if she starts feeding on her own or just being safe and pulling her out of the jug and bottle feeding her.  I am fully against bottle feeding for ‘selfish’ reasons…wanting a tame lamb etc.  But I am not eager to lose a lamb since I have pre-sold EVERY expected lamb and if I lose one for any reason I have to tell someone they are not getting their lamb!  This was supposed to be a herd building year but the demand has been VERY high!  And I see supply chain and food shortages coming this year with the fertilizer shortage being so severe so I am hesitant to put my herd building ahead of people’s food needs.
Anyways, if you have any insights I would love to hear them.  I have never had a lamb START feeding and then later get rejected by mama!  This is a new one on me…but I’m kinda new at this so experience is needed.


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## Baymule (Mar 25, 2022)

What about bottle feeding her and leaving her with the ewe? Maybe try it overnight.


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## Ridgetop (Mar 26, 2022)

How is your selenium level?  Weak lambs can be due to selenium loss.

Check the ewe's bag and teats.  If she is sore or has a plugged teat she may not want the lamb sucking.  Especially if the lamb is vigorous and butts the udder like they do to get the milk to let down.  

If you bottle feed, leave her in the jug or fix up a creep so she can escape from the ewe if the ewe gets to butting her.  Is this a first timer?


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## Legamin (Mar 26, 2022)

Baymule said:


> What about bottle feeding her and leaving her with the ewe? Maybe try it overnight.


I should have typed ‘24 hour mark’ rather than ‘4 hour..’. I left her in for one full day but had to keep increasing the supplement.  Mama got more insistent on keeping her away from feeding so this evening at 32 hours I finally was concerned that she could get accidentally stepped on or lay down on.  Mom is almost 280lbs and a bit clumsy.  The male lamb is doing great.  Just checked on him and he is still feeding even in the dark and mama is standing and letting him do that.  We did decide to bring the ewe in.  Not my first choice and she is crying for milk now…so it’s off to feed and then to bed for a few hours.  I’m hoping that another lamb is born tonight so i can try covering this ewe in the other birthing fluids and try to sneak her in on the new mama…maybe she just thinks “hmmm! Big lamb!”  Maybe not…worth a try if another lamb gives me the opportunity quickly.  Otherwise it’s a couple of long weeks!


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## Legamin (Mar 27, 2022)

Ridgetop said:


> How is your selenium level?  Weak lambs can be due to selenium loss.
> 
> Check the ewe's bag and teats.  If she is sore or has a plugged teat she may not want the lamb sucking.  Especially if the lamb is vigorous and butts the udder like they do to get the milk to let down.
> 
> If you bottle feed, leave her in the jug or fix up a creep so she can escape from the ewe if the ewe gets to butting her.  Is this a first timer?


Nope, this ewe is in her fifth season.  I felt the udder and it seems pliable.  I moved the lamb back out with her and watched for a while.  The ewe tends carefully to the little ram and gently nudges the ewe lamb away.  Nothing sinister, just not interested even though she ‘comparison sniffs’ and seems satisfied that it is her lamb and allows it to be with the ram lamb.  I’m taking bottles out to her and letting her stand and feed in the jug.  I will probably get the lamb gate set up so that she can get away if it gets rough.  I have another several lambs coming so she might just get company in a pen all by their lonesomes…I would rather the lamb continue to feed near and bond with mom so that it is not alone in the pasture.  We are finishing out strengthening our fences this year in an extensive project but I still don’t want little lambs on their own as we have an exceptionally heavy coyote presence.  On an average evening there will be several hundred coming down into our little valley and pacing off outside the fences.  We have barbed wire, electric barriers, metal welded panels, security lights with motion sensors, alarms and cameras but there is no defense as successful as a flock.


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## Legamin (Mar 27, 2022)

So an UPDATE to the UPDATE:  The Ram Lamb is doing great.  Mamma is perfectly happy to let him get all the milk.   I checked the teats and the Ewe, Marigold, and both sides are soft and pliable…no reason not to nurse except she is just taking exception to her daughter.  She tolerates her just fine but if the ewe lamb investigates MOM’S food or tries to nurse, Mom nudges her away.  The ewe lamb is clearly unhappy about the rejection but….no pity….mom’s just indifferent.  She is staying with mom for now and will be hanging out in the pen next to the lambing jug so she doesn’t get lonely.  I’m still a bit concerned that if she gets out with the rest there might be aggression when she is not right by her mamma….and she is the adventurous one!  When I found her she had been born within the previous morning hours had gotten up and made her way through the near solid fence into the Ram pen!  There she tried to nurse on her father…who was having none of it!  It is this short absence from mom that I am thinking she took on foreign lamb scent and began the journey to rejection.  I try to keep a constant eye out but it’s just the two of us and lot’s of work!  For Next year I am thinking a closed circuit monitor in the barn and yard and a sound activated signal to my phone.  I’ve been told this is doable by the techs at the computer store so I’ll add that to the project list!  No WiFi has it’s disadvantages! 
Anyway, mom and lambs are fine.  They started at a shred over 7lbs ewe lamb, 8lbs ram lamb and are already 11.2/12.7 respectively so no one is going hungry!  62 hours old and gained 1/2 of their body weight!  (better them than me!).
Unless anything untoward happens I will probably leave the story here.  But if anyone wants an update or has questions/comments I will check back and respond.
Thanks all!


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## Ridgetop (Mar 27, 2022)

Has this ewe had black lambs before?


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## wolf (Mar 30, 2022)

Legamin said:


> I know it is the same thing every year…year in year out…l know that sheep do what sheep are gonna do….BUT IT’S THE FIRST ONES OF THE SEASON!  WOO! HOO!  Boy!  CDT, colostrum feedings, lambing jug, paint mark the family mark….so much to do..oh! Can’t forget to trim the umbilicus and douse in Betadyne!  Tomorrow if they are doing well the castration and tail docking…maybe wait to the third day just before letting them out of the jug…..I’m always a first time Papa!  Nervous Nelly and quivering with excitement.  My wife giggles at this silly 60 year old skinny farmer running around like a head with his chicken cut off but it always seems there is so much to do at once that even when I’m ready it’s a rush!
> I ALMOST FORGOT!!!!!   NAMES!?!?!?!?!?!?!?   Any suggestions?  This is the meat flock and not the purebred pen so they don’t have to be regal names…just family names!  The bulk of these lambs are presold as meat flock breeders but since I introduced the parents and helped with the weddings and honeymoons…..I should get to name them, right?!  My children and grandchildren get the first three ewes so THEY get naming rights for them….a grandpa’s duty to teach wise naming skills and all….
> Okay…got all my sillies out…my excitement in turning to tiredness and the doubling of chores…but I had to announce the beginning of our lambing season!
> 
> ...


Congrats! 🎈 Never gets old! Like the first eggs and the first tomato each year - it’s a celebration! Ebony and Ivory! Cool pair!


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## Ridgetop (Mar 30, 2022)

Has the ewe begun to accept the ewe lamb or do you have her on a bottle?


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## Legamin (Apr 7, 2022)

Baymule said:


> What about bottle feeding her and leaving her with the ewe? Maybe try it overnight.


I had a ponder as I looked back over the pictures above (and the others in my camera)…. Delilah, the little black lamb above is nursing from mom ewe just fine after I brought her back from her excursion into the ram pen and subsequent attempts to nurse on dad… at first, as is clear by the picture…momma lets her nurse eagerly without any particular upset.  Once I move them to the bonding jug she suddenly rejects the little ewe…I chalked it up to mom not sniffing her when I set her down and she just jumped in there to nurse.  Once settled in the jug she took time to make sure everything was proper and after sniffing the little ewe, must have smelled dad-smell on her (likely a combination of dirty socks, stale cigar smoke and bad housekeeping kind of smell..?). Kidding aside I was surprised at the change of heart.  But she is doing great on the bottle and has the BFL ram-dad’s pushy personality which is so unusual in the Leicester Longwool sheep.


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## Legamin (Apr 7, 2022)

Ridgetop said:


> Has the ewe begun to accept the ewe lamb or do you have her on a bottle?


She is on the bottle now and doing great!  She eagerly knocks off 16oz, 3x per day now and I’m graduating her to a bigger bottle.  I’ve put crushed grain meal in a dish and have a bag of hay hanging (some that I fed through a cutter to reduce size) and she is showing interest already but no real attempts at full bites.  But at two weeks she has almost tripled in weight and easily twice her birth size.  It could be hopeful thinking but I would swear the wool on her legs has already grown slightly!  Under good solid nutrition the wool on the Leicester can grow 12-16” per year!  We have to have the flock sheared twice per year so that nursing is manageable.  Otherwise the wool would be dragging in the dirt and the lambs would never get under the curtain to nurse!  As it was I had to trim two of the ewes so far around the sides and back legs to give access to the lambs!  But that just tells me they are in great health!


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## Baymule (Apr 7, 2022)

What do you do with their wool? Do either you or your wife spin it?


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## Cecilia's-herd (Apr 7, 2022)

If you do, Will you teach us?!


Baymule said:


> What do you do with their wool? Do either you or your wife spin it?


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## Legamin (Apr 7, 2022)

wolf said:


> Congrats! 🎈 Never gets old! Like the first eggs and the first tomato each year - it’s a celebration! Ebony and Ivory! Cool pair!


Thanks!  I get such a kick out of these little lambs.  Easy birthing, great mothering and almost instantaneous jumping and running (at least within three hours).  It means less time in the jug and fewer bottle babies!


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## Legamin (Apr 7, 2022)

Baymule said:


> What do you do with their wool? Do either you or your wife spin it?


While that sounds like a great way to pass time and very interesting, we decided that we can’t take the time to handle our own wool.  After shearing we separate into grades and send 100-200lb lots to various processors.  This year we are focusing on just having it cleaned and made into roving.  Next year we are hoping that the sale of the roving will fund the whole process of making yarn and even a few end products to resell.  With sheep, chickens, rabbits, bees and maintaining a 100+ year old farm and buildings and general farm equipment it was clear that the two of us were not going to become wool experts on top of everything else!  Though we do plan to set some of our product aside for later years when we no longer have such responsibilities and we can focus on just having light work and fun with it!


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## Legamin (Apr 7, 2022)

Cecilia's-herd said:


> If you do, Will you teach us?!


The best I can do is put you in contact with some top quality wool processors.  My son in law is buying 3 of our new lambs and will be doing the whole wool processing.  I hope to learn from him someday!


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## Cecilia's-herd (Apr 8, 2022)

Legamin said:


> The best I can do is put you in contact with some top quality wool processors.  My son in law is buying 3 of our new lambs and will be doing the whole wool processing.  I hope to learn from him someday!


I think I would be more willing to buy some sheep if I saw them as useful! I don’t even know what you can use them all for. But for now, I want this baby goat!


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## SA Farm (Apr 8, 2022)

Cecilia's-herd said:


> I think I would be more willing to buy some sheep if I saw them as useful! I don’t even know what you can use them all for. But for now, I want this baby goat!


Sheep = meat, milk, wool/fibre, lawn maintenance, pets, etc
All the joy and benefits of goats in an easier to maintain package (in my opinion).


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## Legamin (Apr 8, 2022)

Ridgetop said:


> Has this ewe had black lambs before?


This is something I don’t know for sure.  This group of sheep is a new addition to the flock this year.  But I get what you’re saying and have noticed a distinct difference in the acceptance and success of the lambs that share the mother’s color.  We were at first hesitant to admit that we were seeing this…of course we realized this was anthropomorphizing the sheep with clearly human intent.  When your animals are this sweet and responsive it is easy to begin seeing ‘traits’ that are more human than is possible.  Our tan or ‘red’ Leicester had a pure white lamb (which is the dominant wool gene) and took a bit of convincing that he was hers.  In the end she became fiercely defensive of him and now hovers over him every moment.  He is our first purebred ram for the promotion of this species back from critical extinction levels and he was born 10lbs 4oz and has grown 5lbs 1oz in 48 hours!  He looks exactly like his Ram/dad and will probably tip the scales at a similar 340-380lbs when fully matured.  (Sorry for incontinence of the keyboard but this is our first registered pure breeding lambing!)


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## Legamin (Apr 8, 2022)

Cecilia's-herd said:


> I think I would be more willing to buy some sheep if I saw them as useful! I don’t even know what you can use them all for. But for now, I want this baby goat!


That is a stunningly cute goat!  We left of our goat program when we took on the endangered Leicester Longwool breeding program.  Though there are 4 barns and oodles of equipment there are only TWO of us!  So we work with Sheep, Meat sheep (which pay for the purebred program), meat rabbits, honey bees and chickens for eggs.  We try to monetize each program in at least four ways.  The sheep give wool, meat, milk and fertilizer and we are hoping to wash lanolin in the future as the LL’s have a particular abundance of the stuff in their wool!  We have to shear twice per year to keep up with their wool growth so that is our main income from the pure bred sheep besides auction of breeding quality animals.


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## Legamin (Apr 8, 2022)

SA Farm said:


> Sheep = meat, milk, wool/fibre, lawn maintenance, pets, etc
> All the joy and benefits of goats in an easier to maintain package (in my opinion).


That’s where we landed when we gave up the goat program and started with sheep.  We went with a very gentle and responsive breed with easy lambing and great mothering skills.  The best part of it is that fencing is no longer a major issue.  Our fencing went from offensive (keeping the goats in) to defensive (keeping predators out) and the cost difference is significant!


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## Ridgetop (Apr 8, 2022)

Legamin said:


> This is something I don’t know for sure. This group of sheep is a new addition to the flock this year. But I get what you’re saying and have noticed a distinct difference in the acceptance and success of the lambs that share the mother’s color. We were at first hesitant to admit that we were seeing this…of course we realized this was anthropomorphizing the sheep with clearly human intent.


Racist sheep!!!    We have had purebred dogs that would be friendly to strange dogs of the same breed but would go after other breeds.  

That was why I asked the question about the ewe having produced a black lamb before. It is completely possible that she does not recognize that color as one of hers in spite of the birth fluid etc.  If her lambs are born white normally, she may very well have rejected that lamb for color since she had a white lamb as well (that she immediately identified as hers).  If she had a single black lamb, you might eventually have been able to get her to accept the black ewe like the red Leicester ewe did with her single white lamb.  It is interesting that they are color identification oriented.  It is interesting that it doesn't follow through when breeding to different colored rams.


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## Legamin (Apr 8, 2022)

Ridgetop said:


> Racist sheep!!!    We have had purebred dogs that would be friendly to strange dogs of the same breed but would go after other breeds.
> 
> That was why I asked the question about the ewe having produced a black lamb before. It is completely possible that she does not recognize that color as one of hers in spite of the birth fluid etc.  If her lambs are born white normally, she may very well have rejected that lamb for color since she had a white lamb as well (that she immediately identified as hers).  If she had a single black lamb, you might eventually have been able to get her to accept the black ewe like the red Leicester ewe did with her single white lamb.  It is interesting that they are color identification oriented.  It is interesting that it doesn't follow through when breeding to different colored rams.


Absolutely!  The genetics are taking me the most time to grasp the full concept of breeding but it’s important so I’m plugging away.  White is the default genetics for wool color but ‘red’, blue and black are all possible.  The ‘blue’ wool is rarest and there are about 1 in 300 born with this color….now considering that at last census there are about 1000 of this breed on the planet…it is rare, and desirable, indeed.  We are fortunate to have a single ‘blue’ wool ewe and are hoping for blue lamb(s).  We will recycle them (if they meet the physical standards) back to breed in order to improve and increase the number of these color of sheep.  On the flip side we don’t just breed for color because what is overdone becomes common and consequentially of less value at auction.  Right now we are focusing on body habitus, physicality and health and not worrying about the color so much.  On average our lambs have been about 7-8lbs at birth and we just had a single ram born at over 10lbs…gaining to 15.4lbs within 48 hours!  We decided to bring him back to future breeding cycles as he is on track to physically outperform his Sire at 360lbs.  Size isn’t everything but this little guy is showing all the hallmarks of a show quality lamb! His wool growth placement and solid color are stunning.   (I don’t show because I think it’s silly…and there are so few examples of the breed that there is no category for them yet!). Our first real breeding indicator on the little guy is that he was born with larger….maleness…than any other ram I have ever seen birthed!  And this is an incredibly desirable and valuable trait!  So we have high hopes pinned on ‘Endeavor’ the first born purebred ram on our farm!


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## Ridgetop (Apr 8, 2022)

Looks like she had a hard time with that big boy!


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