And still we wait...
Lumi is "great with lamb"... and I mean great. The amazing thing about sheep or at least Finnsheep is that they don't seem to be uncomfortable or bothered by pregnancy at all for a long time. (Sheep gestation is 145 or 150 days depending on the breed. This is 5 months or a little less.) They don't seem to get "morning sickness" and go off their feed. They don't seem to slow down. Life just goes on as normal until about the very last week before their lambs are born. Then they look like they are uncomfortable walking; uncomfortable sitting and ready for it to be over. Once they have lambs they seem happy again and sometimes even seem "proud" of their babies.
I have been going out to the barn every 2 hours all day to check for progress with Lumi and there has been none. She looks pretty happy when she is standing up eating hay and then when she finally lies down, she looks like a miserable stuffed toad. Today is only 143 days of gestation so Thursday is her "real" due date. However Finnsheep often have their lambs at 143 or 144 days if it is a larger litter. We think that given her size Lumi never read the book that says AI litters are often fewer lambs. Here she is standing up:
You can see the short tail that is characteristic of Finnsheep, Shetland, Gotlands, Icelandics and many of the other Nordic breeds which are classified as "Northern Short Tailed breeds". It isn't docked; it is naturally short, sort of pointed and covered with hair, not wool. They don't usually hold their tails up like this though. I think she is getting ready to poop (sorry) which she has been doing a lot of today. I don't think there is room left inside for anything but lambs!
They claim that a ewe tends to give birth at the same time of day each year or breeding. Lumi has had late afternoon lambs, mid afternoon lambs and late morning lambs so I guess all bets are off. At least she has never had night lambs and most ewes don't seem to.
Here is Annika. She is Lumi's daughter and this year is her first time having lambs. She is my smallest ewe. She was one of my little bottle lambs, but I kept her because I love her wool and it is difficult to get wool this nice in the black sheep. (She is solid black with white markings on her face and legs. The brown is sunbleached wool from last summer that didn't get sheared off.) Given her small size, first time mom and AI breeding, I am guessing she will have one or two babies and maybe not till Thursday. She doesn't seem miserable at all. But her udder is really big, so it can't be too much longer.
Helmi's lamb - now one day old - is doing fine. She seems like a smart little lamb. I have always thought that the single lambs are smart. Although we have only had singles twice before and they were huge 9 pounders, so they were born half "grown up". This lamb was bigger than the average Finn lamb, but still only 7 lb 4 oz (that's 3.28 kg to the rest of the world). Maybe the single lambs are just less confused since they have no competition. She has figured out how to find and get on the teat really well. And last night when it was quite cold, she figured out how to sleep under the heat lamp. The ewes all like to sleep with their heads under the heat lamps and the lambs like to sleep near the ewe's head, so that probably helps. This is one of my fancy new heat lamps from Premier which are supposed to be a lot safer and I hope so since they are way more expensive.
As scary as heat lamps are because of the danger of barn fires, part of raising lambs in a cold climate is the necessity of keeping them warm. The heat lamps encourage the babies to sleep over on the side of the "jug" where they are less likely to get stepped on by the ewe. A lambing jug is a small pen where a ewe and her newborn babies are kept together. They are usually kept in the jug for at least 48 hours and sometimes when I have big litters of little lambs I keep the in the jug for up to a week. The jug helps the ewe and lamb(s) bond and learn each other's smells/sounds. Once my lambs start running around and acting "wild" I transfer mom and babies into a nursery pen. More on that later...
I have been going out to the barn every 2 hours all day to check for progress with Lumi and there has been none. She looks pretty happy when she is standing up eating hay and then when she finally lies down, she looks like a miserable stuffed toad. Today is only 143 days of gestation so Thursday is her "real" due date. However Finnsheep often have their lambs at 143 or 144 days if it is a larger litter. We think that given her size Lumi never read the book that says AI litters are often fewer lambs. Here she is standing up:
You can see the short tail that is characteristic of Finnsheep, Shetland, Gotlands, Icelandics and many of the other Nordic breeds which are classified as "Northern Short Tailed breeds". It isn't docked; it is naturally short, sort of pointed and covered with hair, not wool. They don't usually hold their tails up like this though. I think she is getting ready to poop (sorry) which she has been doing a lot of today. I don't think there is room left inside for anything but lambs!
They claim that a ewe tends to give birth at the same time of day each year or breeding. Lumi has had late afternoon lambs, mid afternoon lambs and late morning lambs so I guess all bets are off. At least she has never had night lambs and most ewes don't seem to.
Here is Annika. She is Lumi's daughter and this year is her first time having lambs. She is my smallest ewe. She was one of my little bottle lambs, but I kept her because I love her wool and it is difficult to get wool this nice in the black sheep. (She is solid black with white markings on her face and legs. The brown is sunbleached wool from last summer that didn't get sheared off.) Given her small size, first time mom and AI breeding, I am guessing she will have one or two babies and maybe not till Thursday. She doesn't seem miserable at all. But her udder is really big, so it can't be too much longer.
Helmi's lamb - now one day old - is doing fine. She seems like a smart little lamb. I have always thought that the single lambs are smart. Although we have only had singles twice before and they were huge 9 pounders, so they were born half "grown up". This lamb was bigger than the average Finn lamb, but still only 7 lb 4 oz (that's 3.28 kg to the rest of the world). Maybe the single lambs are just less confused since they have no competition. She has figured out how to find and get on the teat really well. And last night when it was quite cold, she figured out how to sleep under the heat lamp. The ewes all like to sleep with their heads under the heat lamps and the lambs like to sleep near the ewe's head, so that probably helps. This is one of my fancy new heat lamps from Premier which are supposed to be a lot safer and I hope so since they are way more expensive.
As scary as heat lamps are because of the danger of barn fires, part of raising lambs in a cold climate is the necessity of keeping them warm. The heat lamps encourage the babies to sleep over on the side of the "jug" where they are less likely to get stepped on by the ewe. A lambing jug is a small pen where a ewe and her newborn babies are kept together. They are usually kept in the jug for at least 48 hours and sometimes when I have big litters of little lambs I keep the in the jug for up to a week. The jug helps the ewe and lamb(s) bond and learn each other's smells/sounds. Once my lambs start running around and acting "wild" I transfer mom and babies into a nursery pen. More on that later...
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