purplequeenvt - Ivy Knoll Farm

[purplequeenvt]

Wow! Talk about another busy day! We went to the early service at church this morning and, after 3 days of 4 am barn checks, that was no easy feat for me. I had a quick lunch when we got home and then went out to set up the barn for shearing and I found Steve in labor. About 20 minutes later she popped out 2 beautiful black girls!

Steve and her girls, #1210 Maud and #1211 Rebecca

I got Steve and Co. in a makeshift jug and got the ewes penned up in the barn.

Lambs resting in the sun

My aunt and cousin drove up from Southern VT (3 hours) to help out.
"L" hugging Shadow

My daddy....

We were almost done with prep when someone noticed Allison was in labor. We pulled her out of the barn and set her up near where we were working. The shearer, Gwen, came at 3 to shear - we were her 3rd out of 4 stops today. Allison gave birth about 3:30 to a single 14 lb ram lamb. Our lamb count is now 14 lambs out of 7 ewes (200% lambing percentage!) and the boys/girls are 50/50!

#1212 Sebastian

Benjamin, my Dorper/Border Leicester ram. Love the spots!

Got Wool?

Moe isn't sure he likes his hair-cut...

Bare-Naked Ladies!

*Sigh* Shearing is such hard work, isn't it Gus??

This is what my barn looks like with 4 lambing jugs in it.

We sheared 45 sheep today. There are 3 left unsheared that I'll have to do, but we didn't think it would be nice to shear the 2 ewes that had JUST given birth or the ewe that prolapses whenever she lays down. Now I'm waiting for 11 pm to roll around so I can check on my silly ewe with the prolapse and then go to bed.

 

[Queen Mum]

Wow! Talk about another busy day!

We sheared 45 sheep today. There are 3 left unsheared that I'll have to do, but we didn't think it would be nice to shear the 2 ewes that had JUST given birth or the ewe that prolapses whenever she lays down. Now I'm waiting for 11 pm to roll around so I can check on my silly ewe with the prolapse and then go to bed.

45 sheep?!



You must be exhausted!

 

[purplequeenvt]

Wow! Talk about another busy day!

We sheared 45 sheep today. There are 3 left unsheared that I'll have to do, but we didn't think it would be nice to shear the 2 ewes that had JUST given birth or the ewe that prolapses whenever she lays down. Now I'm waiting for 11 pm to roll around so I can check on my silly ewe with the prolapse and then go to bed.

45 sheep?!



You must be exhausted!

Yes, I am. I went out again to check at 4 am and there was a ewe that had just lambed - 1 black boy, 1 white boy, so I didn't get back to bed until 5. And of course it wasn't the stupid (note how she's gone from "silly" to "stupid" ) prolapse ewe, Nellie.

We have 48 sheep total, but that is all the ewes, plus the rams, the yearlings, and the wethers. That number does not include the new lambs however. If we were to add those, the number would be much scarier.....64.

Our number of bred ewes has gone down. We started off with 26 "bred" ewes, but after shearing there is one that is not bred and one that is either not bred or bred to a different ram for April lambs. But that is necessarily bad the one that isn't bred is an older ewe that I was actually hoping wasn't bred - she suddenly got really skinny. The other one I hope is bred, but I don't mind if she is bred to Benjamin because she isn't registered.

 

[purplequeenvt]

Hallelujah! She lambed! Nellie, the prolapsing ewe, had 2 pretty girls today. I had to work today, but I managed to get out of the 2nd 1/2 of the day to come home early. Nellie decided to cooperate with me for once and waited for me to get home. She is being a great mom and appears to be keeping all her insides where they belong.

#1215

#1216

Our boy/girl count is still even because we had these 2 guys born early Monday morning (shortly before 4.....ask me how I know!) Their mother, Sara, doesn't have much milk and she is refusing to accept her black baby. Bad mommy!

#1213

#1214

We are up to 18 lambs with only 3 ewes left to lamb in Group #1 (Group #2 starts in April). We started lambing 11 days ago and in the past 4 days we've had 11 lambs. Since the remaining 3 ewes don't look quite ready to go, I think I shall hang a "Do Not Disturb" sign over my bed tonight.

 

[SuburbanFarmChic]

Great photos!

 

[Queen Mum]

Good for Nellie. Bad for Sara. Oh the shame of it. My namesake is being a bad girl.

 

[purplequeenvt]

We've had a couple of grey chilly days, but the sun is back out today. We got the sheep pen cleaned out again so they are nice and dry.

No more lambs since Tuesday. I guess that's good though. I really needed to catch up on some sleep. Nellie is still a wonderful mom, it's really a shame that she won't get to stay for next year. Her babies are both so pretty. Molly (white) is so delicate and refined looking and Cynthia (black) is actually silver! Most of our lambs are born black and turn grey as they get older, but it is not often that we get a baby that is born with a silver fleece.

I tried many different things to get Sara to accept her 2nd baby but she wouldn't be fooled. So now we have a 4th musketeer - d'Artagnan (Danny for short). He is so sweet!

One of the triplets, Porthos, has earned the name, Twerp. He figured out that other sheep have milk too (less competition) and now he runs around trying to snitch off everyone. He very quickly figured out what was in Danny's bottle too. So now we bring out extra for him.

Speaking of sheep and milk....I caught Moe(mmy) "nursing" a couple lambs the other day! Silly boy!

Here are the 3 Musketeers on their 1 week birthday in the creep that we had just set up.

This is Cynthia - you can just see her silver fleece. I've been trying to get a picture that really shows it, but I haven't had a ton of luck.

And finally, in other news, I *might* be getting a little doeling. For the longest time I've wanted to have a couple dairy goats (much easier to handle then cows!) and I have the opportunity to get a doeling pretty inexpensively from a friend. I am still working on convincing the parents, but I think we are close.

This is a picture of the cutie that I want. We may end up with 2 or 3 babies though.

She isn't anything fancy, I think her dad is either full or part alpine, and her mother is a mix, but her mother apparently has the best tasting milk and her dad comes from great milking lines. I really hope I can get her!

 

[Queen Mum]

If you were closer to me, I would give you one of my doelings and a buckling to go with her. Alpine/Nubian/Oberhauslie. Great milk goats. Creamy milk, lots of it.

 

[purplequeenvt]

Yay! The goat has been OK'ed! But I have been told that the deal is that I have to get out more and see the world (ie. plan my trip to Ireland). I was also told to get 2 babies. I already have Gus, but my mom thinks that even with him and the lambs we should have 2 babies. That made my little sis, Lyd, very happy. She gets to have the other one. We will go to the farm next week to pick the other one out. Now for names!

If you were closer to me, I would give you one of my doelings and a buckling to go with her. Alpine/Nubian/Oberhauslie. Great milk goats. Creamy milk, lots of it.

That is sweet! I wish we were closer too, I've always loved the look of the Oberhasli!

 

[autumnprairie]

Congrats on getting 2 new babies she is adorable can't wait to see what the other one will look like