Today is a quiet day.  The AI lambs are all doing well and the naturally bred lambs aren't due for about 10 days.  I had originally brought all 6 ewes into the barn for a few days last week just to be on the safe side, but let Katja, Mara and Pilvi back outside for a while.  It will be good for them to get more exercise and will keep the barn cleaner.  Here are some photos Upal took yesterday...



Rio the flock guardian dog, still wearing her winter coat.  She was laying in a little mound of loose dirt that she likes to bury her "treasures" in, so she looks a little messy here.  We can hear coyotes howling and yipping in the distance across the road every night now.  It sounds really creepy and Rio goes wild barking and patrolling.  She knows...



Here is our barn set up with the ewes and lambs still in the "jugs" (lambing pens). 

In the next couple of days I plan to set up a nursery pen with a lamb creep and let the first two groups out so the lambs will have more room to run around.  (A creep is a pen with a slotted gate that only lambs can fit through.  You put special food for the lambs in there that the mothers can't get to.  On ours, you can adjust the size of the vertical bars which create these slots to adjust to the size of the lambs.  The only problem with this system is that really small Finn ewes can squish themselves to be really narrow, especially after they have just had lambs.  But it is better than nothing.

I will leave Annika and her babies in their "jug" for a few more days.  Her babies are still pretty small and young and she is still quite concerned that they stay next to her every moment.  I hope by then she will relax a little.



Here is Lumi's grey boy.  You can see more grey wool coming in on his rear and side.  Notice the light colored skin showing through in his armpit.  (Genetically black sheep have black skin also.)



Here is Annika's grey girl showing her new grey wool.