Lambs everywhere you look!

Lamb count: 54 bouncing babies
Sets of twins: 20
Sets of triplets: 2
Singles: 12

We are through the biggest part of lambing season, still plenty of ewes to go, but most of the ewes that settled to their first breeding have now lambed. The final round of lambings will be more sporadic and will stretch out over the next month. Without actually going through the records to add everything up, it appears Dalton is making a very good showing in his second year on the job. We have had lots of adorable speckle-faced lambs. And lots of twins... life is good!

We finished shearing April 2 by doing our yearling ewes, the recently purchased Dorset yearlings, and our new Dorset ram. We confirmed that several of our home grown yearlings were bred and making udders. They have been added to the ladies in waiting group at the barn. We also discovered one of the Dorset yearlings was a wether, not a ewe, so he joined the last group of 2011 market lambs on the trailer April 3. All of the not-bred sheep are now at our farm in New Hope. The Dorsets and Dorpers are in one group, and we'll be turning rams in with them very soon. Our home grown replacements are in another group, eating grass and packing on the pounds so they will be primed for breeding in the fall. We shooed the laying hens out of the winter coop and into their summer quarters, just in time for the arrival of a new batch of broiler chicks April 2. We start the broilers in the winter coop so they have some good protection while they are tiny. In another week they too will hit the grass in their own little chicken huts.

And in the garden, the peas are up and the garlic looks fantastic. The tomato seeds I started have sprouted and will need to be moved to individual pots soon. We planted strawberries in some new raised beds and finally built a trellis for the grape vines over the weekend.

Here's a look at what's been happening over the last two weeks:

73 and her lambs: 73 and 34 lambed almost exactly at the same time. 73 had a single while 34 had triplets. I took the oldest of 34's lambs and tried to get 73 to adopt her. The lamb recognizes 73 as her mama, but 73 only tolerates the lamb. Thankfully, this is an aggressive and creative ewe lamb. She has figured out how to nurse even though 73 isn't thrilled about it. In this picture the lambs are outside of the jug because they learned it was safer there when 73 was chasing the little orphan lamb around. The whole family is now out of the jug and doing well in the mixing pen, even with a bigger area and more traffic. I have seen the lamb continue her antics of stealing milk at every opportunity, she's a fast little sucker!

 The primary strategy for stealing milk from a mama who doesn't want to share - sneak up behind her, especially when mama is preoccupied nursing her own lamb or eating.

 We docked tails and put ear tags in a group of 27 lambs on April 1. Then those lambs and their mamas went out into a large section of pasture. They seem to be enjoying the fresh air and green grass!

 This is the first year we have had a creep for the lambs. There is one set of twins in particular who love to sleep in the protected lamb-only zone inside the creep. It doesn't seem like they are eating much grain though.

And now for a tulip tour: