The Wooley Tide

It's that time of year....

These were the firsts arrivals a few days ago, a nice set of triplets.

With a proud and attentive mom - Flora.  She was one of the X twins from a few years ago, one of the two with the X on the face, which you can just barely see now.

This morning brought a full set of quads.  All healthy and bouncy and delivered with no problems or assistance.

FB doesn't like for the moms to raise more than two babies so a few of these lambs will probably go to new homes and be raised as bottle babies.  It is the only good way to ensure that everyone gets enough to eat and that the mom stays healthy.  We'd prefer it if these ewes stuck with having twins, but there is no arguing with them.

Catarina, who also got sheared last week and is looking especially space-alien like, is deeply interested in the new babies and is very eager to meet them.  She loves her sheeps.

There are lots more babies on the way....

...maybe even another space alien.

I presume space-alien babies arrive in the normal fashion, but we will be on the lookout for odd flying objects just in case.  You just never know when aliens are involved.

Meanwhile, the more prosaic sorts will, hopefully, continue popping out little lambs in good order.

Lambs, lambs and more lambs

More lambies born today....

Rosa had a set of triplets this morning.  Fortunately, she had them mid-morning, when FB was around to help because she definitely needed help.  The first baby was backwards and trying to come out tail first.  FB got that sorted out and that baby was soon followed by a second.

Less than an hour old....

Rosa wasn't quite done though and baby number three was also backwards, stuck and needing help to arrive in the world.  

Mom was pretty tired after the delivery and needed some help getting up, but was soon back on her feet and doing well.  The ewes always get a bucket of warm water with molasses in it after giving birth.  The sugar and electrolytes in the molasses gives them a bit of a boost and the warm water helps relax and soothe all their shifted innards.  Rosa is a good mom and much enamored of her babies.  Two girls and a boy, the brown one is the boy.  Takes a bit after Ramsey:)

The quads are all doing well and are learning about the joys of the great outdoors.

There are three boys and one girl in this colorful group.  The mom here is Flora, who is a Tunis/Blue-faced Leicester/Border Cheviot cross (I think).  If I haven't gotten this completely muddled, the father is also a Border Cheviot.  It is interesting how all those scrambled genetics show up differently in each of these quadruplets.

 

This is the little ewe lamb, and she left today to be raised as a bottle baby, which will ensure that she gets enough milk and take some of the pressure off of Flora.

There was already a lot of squabbling over the milk bar.  Hopefully, this will allow the ewe lamb to grow up to be part of another flock and Flora will be able to manage with three babies instead of four.

Still 3 or 4 ewes to go before lambing is done for the year.

Ready to Pop

We had to do some livestock rearranging over at FB's.  The sheep are due to start lambing in the coming week and we gave them more room for the job.

They now have access to half of the barn, which is about 170 feet long, total.  There are a couple of pens available to place new families for the first couple of days so that mom and babies can all get acquainted away from the crowd.

These are the two "X" sisters, Flora and Zinnia, born a year apart, but nearly identical.  Both lambs were born here and kept as part of the flock.  These two will have grown some of the really nice fleeces.

We moved calves to the other end of the barn and, hopefully won't have to use the empty pen next to the pigs.  No sense tempting a couple of very rowdy, 200 pound, predatory omnivores with tender, young lamb.  Pigs WILL eat anything they can catch and these two could outrun a cheetah.

FB thought she might lose the white pig last week when she suddenly developed pneumonia.  We have no idea why and the black pig never had any trouble.  Maybe it is the crazy weather changes we keep having.  The only good thing about the pig being so sick is that it slowed her down enough to get some antibiotics into her.  Handling pigs is a real nightmare.

Pigs are craftily intelligent and, if trained from birth, can be made into pets.  These are NOT pets.  Pigs are fast, powerful, aggressive, amazingly greedy and can be extremely dangerous to work with.  Fortunately, she is 100% recovered now and back in raring form; ready, able and willing to eat any hapless lambs she could sink her tusks into.

Losing a big pig like this would have been a real blow, both emotionally and financially.  Luckily, antibiotics still work.  This is an organic farm and we do not use antibiotics or any other drugs on a routine basis.  However, if an animal gets sick or injured, we treat it.  We do not believe in letting anyone suffer for the sake of semantics.  When this pig is butchered, we will keep the meat for ourselves.  It will be perfectly safe to eat, but it will not be for sale.

I think this will be the first to pop....

The earliest she could be due is Monday, but I'm not so sure she'll make that far.

FB calculated the original due date at April 17th.  The rest might make it.

We generally prefer to have the lambs born in May.  However, FB and a neighbor used the same ram to breed the ewes last year and the Ram took it upon himself to break out from the neighbor's fence and come visiting a month early.

By next weekend, there will likely be many new babies bouncing around.

These girls can't possibly get much more pregnant.