SheepGirl's 2014 Lambing Thread

[SheepGirl]

Wow - third post on my lambing journal for today. Haha.

Anyway, Ciqala is 3 months bred and the other ewes are all 2-2.5 months bred I can't wait for babies!! Ciqala has a really big belly already. I'm so excited, I want to know how many babies each ewe is carrying lol.

I also noticed that Miss Ali, last year weaned two lambs with a combined weight of 49.5 lbs and she weaned a single this year at 49.8 lbs. Very similar. I wonder if it was the genetics of the twins (twin sibling breeding) that caused them to be slow growers or if Ali is only capable of producing enough milk to produce lambs up to ~50 lbs total. I guess we will find out in a couple months! I also noticed with Ali that she is the kindest sheep I have. At the fenceline feeder, every sheep will but every other sheep out of the way to get to a new spot, except for Ali. She will back out of the spot that she got bored of, sniff another sheep's butt (probably to see who it is), and then she will paw at them as if she is saying "excuse me, I would like to eat here." If they don't move, she goes and finds another sheep to ask to move. I have never seen her butt a sheep out of the way to get where she would like to eat. She seems so polite! haha.

 

[SheepGirl]

Looking at buying some hay for winter. I need about 1 ton of hay. I found an ad on craigslist for horse quality hay, bales 45-55 lbs for $5 each plus $20 for delivery (which I would need since we got rid of our truck). I would need 50 bales. (Or 5 roundbales.) It will be $100 more expensive to feed square bales, but I'm willing to do it. It will only be about $1 a day extra to pay for the convenience of square bales. And since I am at work 5 out of 7 days and I stay out til 3 or 4 in the morning almost every night with my friends it's a convenience I'm willing to pay for to make my life easier. Often I don't wake up until 20-30 minutes before I have to leave to go to work. I won't have time to feed from a round bale. But if I could just throw half a square bale out to the sheep, it will take 5 minutes (if that) and I can be on my way. Actually I think it would take me longer to get dressed in my Carharrt coveralls and my boots than it would for me to feed the sheep!

 

[bonbean01]

Love the gate feeding system!!! Makes it good to see far less wasted hay!!! Excited for your lambies arriving...your breed just look so CUTE like teddy bears, but those baby lambs are extra CUTE!!!

 

[BrownSheep]

Are you certain you'll be feeding 1/2 a bale? We feed high protein alfalfa hay and one square bale is at least 90lbs. When we feed we count the whole flock as late gestation ewes so with 42 we end up feeding 1.5-2 bales for 42 sheep.

 

[SheepGirl]

Yep, the bales weigh 45-55 lbs. I'm figuring on feeding about 22-25 lbs of hay a day to my flock of 6. I only calculated feed out for the ewes. I figured the rams could be out on pasture all winter, like I did with Hank, so they won't need hay. I will probably give them some grain since there will be more sheep on the pasture than last year. Maybe 1/4 lb for each. Just need to move these ewes off the field before they eat the rest of the grass!

 

[BrownSheep]

Ok lighter bales....I was thinking either I'm starving my sheep or yours must be Godzilla sheep

 

[SheepGirl]

Last Thursday I spent $170 on 30 bales of horse quality grass hay. Had them all delivered and I stacked them in the feed shack. To cover myself for a couple days I bought a $20 50 lb bale of timothy grass hay at TSC. Can't believe I spent that much money on hay. But I needed it. It was really green, too. The sheep actually didn't like it at first and were eating the grass hay I was picking up off the floor of the feed shack.

Seven more weeks until Ciqala is due!! <3 And then nine more weeks until Rosie, ten weeks until the next one and eleven weeks until the last one I'm soooo excited for lambs!! Time will fly by. November & December went by soo fast. Can't believe it's been three weeks already since I saw Panic! At The Disco (my fave band) in Baltimore. I'm so happy. Time goes by so fast for me so the next 7 weeks will be nothing. But the two weeks waiting between Ciqala and Rosie will kill me

I also need to figure out vaccination dates and also when I need to start feeding grain again.

 

[Roving Jacobs]

That soon already? Time flies! Mine aren't due until April so its nice to get so everyone else have all their lambies to tide me over.

 

[SheepGirl]

38 more days until the Ciqala is due!

Gotta say, I'm pretty excited for lambs.

 

[SheepGirl]

I think I know which direction I want to go in with my sheep.

I will focus on growth & carcass characteristics to create a heavy muscled meat animal. I'm choosing the easy way out because terminal traits are very heritable as opposed to maternal traits Even though my local auction doesn't sell lambs by carcass quality (but rather weight), I still think it would be nice to have excellent carcasses.

I may scan my lambs this year and get REA/LEA data on them. I don't know yet, I will have to try to find a scanner and then inquire about prices. I already figured out the lab that reads the ultrasounds, it's the CUP Lab. Their interpretation fees seem very reasonable, $4.25/head but there is a $0.25/hd discount if you pay in cash and a $0.20/hd discount if your paperwork is completely and accurately filled out. However if I do this, I will also probably want to get a pair of shears so I can shear the lambs, take photos of them at market weight, and get them scanned, too. I'm not sure yet...just kind of thinking out loud here

I think my main issue would be is to find rams that have scan data on them. I will probably end up linebreeding/inbreeding my flock to some extent. But maybe not if I can find stock with scan data.