Saturday, May 7, 2011

Kids and Lambs

Last night, when I would normally be in my jammies and watching a little TV before bed, I was helping a new mom deliver a baby. This is Elfine, a Nigerian Dwarf goat, and her new little buckling, who appears to have more of an Angora fleece like his papa. She is a wonderful mom and both were doing fine this morning.


And another of the Nigerians, Sequoia, who has two little bucks, one brown and the other, pictured here, who is brown and white. Their fleece is more "Nigerian-like". This is Billy, with his mom.


Shetland lambs, so far, have been mostly ewes. This is Fontina with her moorit (or maybe musket) ewe lamb.



And the newest member of the flock, Arcateen's moorit gulmoget ram lamb, who was born sometime last night or early this morning while we slept. He looks a lot like his papa, Tarpan. Gotta love those Shetlands - he was all dry, fed and sleeping in the barnyard with his mom when Larry did the first check this morning. (For those of you who know that I never put our Shetlands in jugs - a few of the Shetlands ended up with the "BWS" and they have gone into jugs and then into the nursery as I "funnel" them out into the Shetland pasture to rejoin their flock. The majority of the Shetlands are lambing on pasture without the "benefit" of jugging, since they don't really need it - they bond so well with their lambs and are very protective by nature.)




I'll have to check the lambing sheets, but we must be at about 50 lambs and kids at this point. The majority of the "big, white sheep" are done - we still have six or eight Shetlands and Icelandics to lamb and most of the goats - although I'm not sure all of them were bred, some are still slender with no udders. Lamb percentages are down a bit this year - feed quality wasn't as good. But the lambs and kids that are on the ground look good. And such a variety - Shetlands, Icelandics, Coopworths, Polypays, goats. Colors and patterns. It's like Christmas!