Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Catching up



The last babies were born yesterday! Yeah. Final lamb count and some individual pictures of purebred lambs to come on another post. I went to Stephenson County Fiber Event in IL on the 8'th and got back the 9'th late, then just enough time to repack and go to Greencastle Fiver Event in IN on the14'th early. I got back on the 17'th just half an hour before a doe had triplets. Someone did kid when I was gone, but the kid got stuck (both legs were back) and was stillborn. At least the doe is OK. She had acted "off" for a couple days. Now I just have to work on skirting and posting my fleeces and shear the rest of my boys. I got three done yesterday (plus the three yearling does), 11 to go!

A carpet of lambs! This year all of the lambs are tending to sleep in one or two big piles!More lamb carpet. I can't get the whole carpet in one picture. (There are both colored and white crossbred lambs and some colored and white pure Shetland lambs.)
This is what it looked like on the 19'th. 7 in. of heavy wet snow. A local farmer had a shed collapse under the weight of it. (These are my yearlings. The blue tarp is tied to a cattle panel and I locked all of the girls up as the snow was blowing right into their 3 1/2 sided shed, the tarp worked wonders!) It's raining today, again. This weather really is not good for anyone involved with agriculture. Normally farmers are plowing and starting to plant. They can't do that as the fields are pure mud. No grass for the grazers yet either. Now I just need to buy some more hay as I was counting on grazing after the first of May. That's not going to happen! Off to the hay auction...

(More on Greencastle later.)

5 comments:

  1. How interesting, my lambs tend to sleep with their twins, but I have never seen mine sleep in a big group like that! Very cute.

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  2. Wow! Those photos of the lambs sleeping together in one big "pile" was so cool. I have never seen lambs do this...at least on my farm. Have they ever on yours before? Nice looking lambs too !

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  3. I'm a huge fan of the lamb pile. I've never seen that before either. Great shots Laura.
    Here's to hoping the snow leaves and you get some grass growing very soon. We are wet, wet, wet!

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  4. Super cute :) I love it when they sleep in piles :)

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  5. The lambs haven't generally sleep in one or two big piles before, but this year they are spending record time locked up in the barn as even when it is not raining the pen next to the barn has standing water and very deep muck-don't want them in that! It is fun to see around 90 babies in one or two big piles!

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