Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[Ridgetop]

Got the extra canning jars packed up today, did 2 loads of laundry, made a jar of applesauce and am heading out to put the chicken in the oven. So little done, why do I feel so good about it?

We were supposed to get more rain today and tomorrow. Nothing has appeared. I mentioned hauling 4 pallets over to the corral and making another rain shelter since we now have 24 sheep and lambs in the corral at night. If it clouds up tomorrow I will try to do that in spite of DS1 telling me it is not necessary. I have become lazy and need to start getting back into doing stuff.

DS1 just come up from feeding and said there is a ewe with a lamb head sticking out. NOT the one with the ginormous udder, or her enormous pen mate, one of the others in the creep pen. Went down and it was OR27 - small ewe like most of the Axtell sired ewes, with a huge lamb jammed in. Got the leg and head and pulled but no luck, too dry. Shoved some antibacterial soap in around the lamb and pulled and moved him a bit more but couldn't get him out. Switched places with DS1, and he pulled the lamb while I pulled back on the ewe's rump (sometimes that wool thatch is helpful) and he got him out. Huge lamb - knew it was a ram before checking. Dead. The ewe didn't look to have any more in her, but I lost a good ewe by not checking a couple years ago so I went in to check. First, I thought she was empty then I found the second lamb way back inside. No room for it to move down with Jumbo blocking the path. Found the front legs and head, I was afraid that it was dead too so just commenced to pulling it out. It didn't want to move at first, but I finally got it down a bit and the ewe started pushing again. Another large lamb but this time it was alive. Swung it and tossed cold water on it and it perked up although jti had breathed in some liquid and I had to aspirate it with the snot sucker. The ewe stopped looking at the dead lamb and began cleaning the live lamb. Iodine on the cord and done. Bagged the dead lamb for the trash and up to the house to wash the blood out of my tennis shoes. Back in the house and showered before putting dinner on the table. At least one survived and she is another Lewis daughter. First lamb of 2023.

I love my Lewis sired lambs. Lewis will be 7 years old in May! Time snuck up on me. I bought him as a 2-year-old stud ram. I only paid $500 and he has given me some gorgeous daughters and one gorgeous son that I kept. Paul Lewis' starting ram price now is around $1000 and most go much higher. I got a terrific buy on that ram. I will put all 16 of the open ewes in with him since I may not have him fertile much longer. I guess I need to think about getting another Paul Lewis bred ram this year. He is on LambPlan so I will look for one with low birthweight and fast gain. A low-birth-weight ram will let me use hm on yearlings without a problem. Lewis usually has lower birth-weight lambs so we may be feeding too heavily this close to lambing. We started cutting back on the alfalfa since we have so much weed growth. Thank you El Nino!

Here's hoping that the 3 Lewis daughters in the Texas Five show some parasite resistance.

 

[farmerjan]

Sorry about the dead lamb but good save on finding and getting the 2nd one out and going... good to not lose the lactation on the ewe...

 

[Ridgetop]

I was lying by the pool on the cruise ship waiting for my adult beverage. I had magically lost 50 lbs. and looked really good in my bikini. The waiter showed up with my drink and started poking me. ??? He also was addressing me as "Mom". Did that mean I didn't have to tip him? And what kind of drink was named "Another lamb . . ."?

DS1, yes it was he and there was no adult beverage. I also noticed that I had regained those 50 lbs. as I struggled into my barn jeans. Another lamb with its head out and stuck. At least this ewe already had a lamb on the ground. It was dry and had nursed which wasn't good news for the stuck lamb but you never know. I staggered into the barn pulling on my gloves. OR8 looked up from her dry, nursing lamb with disinterest. Only the lamb head flopping around behind her like a weird tail gave any indication that she had not finished giving birth. That and the fact that she was still ginormous. DS1 held her head and I pulled. This lamb was a big one too and there was a full sac trying to come out next to it. Pushing the sac back in I rearranged my hands and pulled harder and down. The ewe moaned and out it came. Ram lamb. Dead of course. However, she was still huge, and that full sac bothered me so after trying to revive the dead lamb I had DS1 hold the ewe again. Sure enough there was a third lamb in there. The sac hadn't ruptured, and it was in proper birthing position. A little tug and out it came and lay still. Hoping it was alive we broke the sac and threw cold water on it. Thank you Dr. Pol for that tip. It came to life sneezing. I used the snot sucker and placed the newborn in front of mama. However, mama was not interested in a newborn. She had her nursing lamb up and dry - why take on anymore work? At 1:00 am I didn't blame her. I removed the firstborn lamb, a ram, and iodined the cord. With the disappearance of number one, the ewe finally deigned to notice the newborn and halfheartedly clean it. It was a ewe, and although weaker, moving around. DS1 held out the open garbage sack and another dead lamb went to join his half-brother in the garbage can. I iodined the new ewe lamb's cord and we staggered back to bed leaving the ewe to hopefully care for both lambs. If she doesn't take them both, morning will be soon enough to take on a bottle baby.

Back to bed - maybe that waiter is still around with my drink . . . .

 

[Baymule]

Wow! You’ve had a rough night of it! You saved 2 lambs that would have died otherwise. Might have lost the ewes too, so a good night, even if your sleep was interrupted. Hope you are sleeping now, in your bikini, looking fabulous with that handsome, attentive waiter bringing you another adult beverage, and it’s not named dead lamb.

 

[Ridgetop]

OR8 is taking care of her surviving twins. Went to hair and nail appointment this am. Forgot my phone and when i returned got a tongue lashing from DS1 about it since apparently another ewe was in labor and now n trouble. Another large lamb was wedged with it's front feet on either side of the widest part of the head and stuck like a cork in a bottle with just the tongue hanging out. Tried to get out one of the legs but no go. Tried to push the head back in and no go. My purchased rubber lambing snare is worthless since it always slips off the legs so after a lot of pulling and grunting (me as well as the ewe) I finally got a hay string around one foot and managed to get it partially out. Now the first knuckle of one leg and the muzzle of the lamb was out but stuck. I was able to rub and stretch the vulva large enough to get the head and half the leg out but there it jammed with the other foot wedging everything in. I had DS1 turn the ewe upside down to take the weight off the pelvis and loosen up the blockage. pulling n the head and one leg wrapped in a towel the lamb finally popped out. It looked dead with that swollen tongue, but an ear twitched and I swung it around, then the cold-water trick brought it to, sneezing and shaking its head weakly. This ewe was still huge and didn't want to get up, but DS1 and I got her to her feet and she immediately started cleaning the lamb. Since the ewe was still huge, I hoped there might be another lamb still inside but after 30 minutes, nothing had happened. The lamb was pretty weak, although a good size ewe lamb, and was still trying to get to its feet. I had DH hold her by the head while I checked. I couldn't find another lamb inside so hope there isn't a dead one in there. Although I should have been able to feel a dead one inside. I stayed in the barn watching the lamb trying to latch on but eith that swollen tongue it was having trouble sucking. It was cold in the barn and there was a sharp wind so I finally came up to the house. I checked her in another 45 minutes, and she has passed the placenta so either this was a single, or she has another lamb in the other horn that hasn't dropped yet. (Had that happen once before - a big Suffolk ewe lambed a huge lamb at 4:00pm. She was still huge and I felt around up to my elbow but there was nothing there. She passed the placenta 30 minutes later. 14 hours later DS3 went down to do the milking and ran up to tell me that she was lambing again. She delivered twins half the size of the first one! She raised all three.

This ewe 8111 is one of my best ewes, and I only have 3 daughters out of her, including this one. 2 are out of Lewis. Her last lambing produced a large ewe lamb that was stuck, had to pull and didn't survive. Her oldest daughter, BL18, lambed a single ewe this year out of Smalley. Both 8111 and BL18 are grade 5 ewes. She has twinned twice until last year and this year when she had singles ewes that had to be pulled. I am waiting to see what happens in the morning. She is 5 years old and will have another lambing but may be in her way out if she isn't better at producing lambs without trouble. She is very level across her rump and it is possible that her super level rump is making delivering these large lambs harder for her. A slight angle to the rump from the hip to the dock is preferred for ease of lambing. When the rump is too level the angle through the pelvis might be affected. She has had no trouble with twins because they were smaller lambs, but these large singles have gotten stuck. I also really think we overfed these pregnant ewes. Overfeeding in the last month can lead to oversize lambs. When I breed the next group, we will cut their feed back the last month of pregnancy to avoid having such large lambs.

It is raining again, and 2 more days of rain are expected, along with flooding and heavy snow in the mountains. The growth on the hills is pretty lush. I wish I could turn the sheep out on the neighborhood hillside grass. It is 2 feet tall and really thick. We have 5 ewes still to lamb out - 3 with no due dates because the marking dates were not written down. (Thank you DD2 and husband.) A couple ewes are pretty large but don't have any udders yet. I hate not knowing when the ewes are expected to lamb.

 

[Baymule]

You have really had some tough lambing’s. I hope this baby makes it, you might have to bottle feed her. If 8111 is one of your best ewes and only 5 years old, cut her feed back next year and see if that helps. Don’t get rid of her for her age. My black ewe, Ewenique, is 9 years old, had a lovely single last year and twins this year. She’s a little ragged looking, but usually is after raising twins. She puts it all in the milk bag. So, keep 8111, even into her old age, you might be surprised. After all, she’s in her PRIME of LIFE!

 

[Ridgetop]

I do plan to breed her again. Both of her daughters old enough to evaluate are grade 5 like she is. She is acting just fine and might just be fat. I have a couple shots of Oxytocin in the fridge from the ewe that died of sepsis in November. If she starts to look off, I will give her a dose of Oxy. If she is too fat, that would be another reason for having large singles. She may be a super easy keeper and a greedy eater. Over conditioned ewes sometimes have problems settling or conceiving more than one..

I have 2 Lewis daughters out of her now, and she is taking good care of this lamb. BL18 is her daughter out of Moyboy and had a Smalley daughter in November. The Smalley daughter has HIJO bloodlines on both sides as well as Paul Lewis lines on both sides. Her older Lewis daughter is due to lamb the middle of the month and is bred back to her sire. It is an inbreeding, but I am interested to see what happens. P5 is a grade 5 ewe so I am hopeful about her lamb(s).

I am beginning to wonder if all the lambing problems from August forward are because we were overfeeding the heavily pregnant ewes. We do tend to feed heavily to keep condition on, and most of our nursing ewes regain condition within a month. We don't grain or supplement, but our alfalfa is high quality. It is Imperial Valley alfalfa and has good selenium levels too. I really think we have to reassess our feeding program in the last month of pregnancy and cut down portions. I will flush the open ewes in May, and then go back to normal portions until a month before lambing and see how that goes.

It rained again heavily last night and through this morning. By now the hills usually start getting dry and brown, but they are still fresh green with all this rain. When it rains then clears then rains again the grass keeps growing. If only we had this grass all year round.

 

[SageHill]

It rained again heavily last night and through this morning. By now the hills usually start getting dry and brown, but they are still fresh green with all this rain. When it rains then clears then rains again the grass keeps growing. If only we had this grass all year round.

Rain and hail here as well today. Though that green stuff is changing color just like it did last year this time. I had hoped all the rain would keep us greener longer but I’m afraid that won’t be the case. By the second week in April I’m sure we will be approaching brown and far away from the Hawaii green we’ve been enjoying since December.

 

[Ridgetop]

Went out to check ewes for any new lambs and saw all the field sheep on the other side of the gully grazing. Since it had rained all night, they were bright sparkling white against the green forage. Ran in for my camera but by the time I got back out they had relocated deeper into the gully and I couldn't get a good shot. Then it started clouding up. Another hard fast rainstorm blew in and lasted about 2 hours. Now it is clear blue skies with fluffy white clouds.

Quick update on 8111. Went down to the barn with DS1 and got rude with her lady parts. No lamb left inside, alive or dead, although she did have a rectum full of sheep raisins. After subjecting her to that indignity I checked her body condition score. She is about a condition Score 8, definitely fat, or to be politically correct "Heavily Over Conditioned". So now I know that the problems I have been having with the super ginormous and hard to deliver lambs are MY FAULT for over feeding! Bad sheep momma - no biscuit!

Though that green stuff is changing color just like it did last year this time. I had hoped all the rain would keep us greener longer but I’m afraid that won’t be the case.

However, last year we didn't have any forage growth. From halfway down our side of the gully and across and up the other side it stayed brown dirt with no rain. This year we have heavy growth on all sides of the gully and the bottom. Even 2-3 weeks of not feeding hay saves me beaucoup $$$.

 

[SageHill]

However, last year we didn't have any forage growth. From halfway down our side of the gully and across and up the other side it stayed brown dirt with no rain. This year we have heavy growth on all sides of the gully and the bottom. Even 2-3 weeks of not feeding hay saves me beaucoup $$$.

Ah - we're a bit different than you then. Though this year the hay sure is lasting longer than last year - even DH has been commenting on the last load lasting longer. Last year this time I kept a close eye on the forage here - we were looking forward to our nephew coming out the beginning of April and I watched the hills like a hawk as I wanted him to see the ranch when it was green. He almost missed the green. Week after he left things went brown.