Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Baymule]

Haha Maxwell is no dummy!

Right now Ringo has one ewe with him. She is due in March so I’ll be taking her out this month. Then he can sniff through the fence until May when he gets half the flock back.

I have one terrible ewe that will go to slaughter. I have two ewes sold. I’ll wean their lambs, worm, trim feet and breed them to Ringo before they go to their new home. I’m keeping 3 ewe lambs from this crop. I’ll breed them and the late lamb mommas in the fall to Ringo. If I work this right, he shouldn’t have to live alone for very long at a time.

 

[Mike CHS]

We had another set of twins born while I was in the paddock about 1/2 hour ago. Both of these guys are small so we will keep an eye on them.

 

[Bruce]

I hope they will do well, I'm sure your care will help make that possible.
Are they the first for this ewe, therefore maybe why they are small?

 

[Baymule]

I hope they do well and grow off good for you. My cull ewe had twins, small, they have stayed small. They are dwarfed by their bigger half siblings from other ewes. Can't exactly stick an air hose up their butt and pump them up!

 

[Mike CHS]

I hope they will do well, I'm sure your care will help make that possible.
Are they the first for this ewe, therefore maybe why they are small?

This is her second lambing. She is on the smaller side of our girls but we didn't cull because of her immune system. She is two years old and has never needed worming and we tend to favor that over size. The white one is a ram lamb and she wouldn't let me catch the other one so we will see later.

 

[Baymule]

That is some good worm resistance! Keeping her genetics is a good idea. I'm guessing that she is Ringo's daughter?

 

[Mike CHS]

She is one of Ringo's for sure.

 

[Mike CHS]

This is a grainy picture because I zoomed from the house a couple hundred feet. This ewe lamb has marking similar to our bottle lamb Taffy from last lambing.

 

[Mike CHS]

We got home from the store this afternoon and I went into the bedroom to change clothes because we were going to do ear tags this afternoon before they get where I can't catch them. I looked down at the stall and saw a lamb on the wrong side of the fence. We went down and put her back in the paddock but have absolutely no idea how she got out. There were a couple of possibles though so I tightened them up and filled in an area that has a bit of erosion that would possibly be big enough. The first born were already wild but their dam is on the wild side so it's natural. I called the sheep into the stall where they are used to getting feed occasionally and then lured about half of them into the handling chute to keep them out of the way. I actually put some food out and opened the gate and all of the ewes came in with their lambs so doing ear tags was just a few minutes.

 

[Mike CHS]

I meant to mention earlier that all of our lamb weights are much smaller than previously. Of the 8 born so far, the weights range from a low of 6 1/2 lbs to a high of 9 1/2 pounds. Granted these are all twins so they aren't abnormal. The last couple of lambing seasons had us worried about the ewes giving birth because the lambs were huge. Last season, our smallest lambs were almost 9 lbs and most were in the 12-13 pound range with a few over 14. We went into this winter planning on minimal added sustenance and mostly on hay unless their condition started going down. They are maintaining well although I do give feed (a small amount) every few days. The labors that I've seen so far are amazingly fast and the ewes are recovering faster so this will probably be our method from now on.