T-1 Day...Right on Time

Well, in a first for Old Home Crawford, a lamb actually arrived BEFORE the official due date! Maggie, a first time mom, gave us a dark, solid, single ewe lamb after a very short (1.5 hours) labor this evening. The official ewe due date was tomorrow, so I guess Cedar knew what he was doing.

The play-by-play:

When I came home from work Maggie seemed a bit off, but I didn't actually think she'd lamb tonight. My best guess was within 72 hours. She just wasn't as ravenous as the other ewes, and she certainly seemed sunken in at the groin.

Just after 8 I decided to check on her to see if I wanted to stay the night at the farm. In the corner of the stall was a sizable nest and Maggie standing next to it with her mom, Wynona. The other ewes all seemed to be happily chewing cud, but Maggie was clearly agitated. After watching for a few minutes, she widened the next and laid down, grunting and straining. I ran back to the house to announce the impending birth, and then returned to the barn to relocate her to the birthing suite.

By 8:30 Maggie was checking out her new living quarters and avoiding the hay. By 9 she had dug herself a nest and began lip curling. By 10 the lamb was nursing and primarily dry. At this point everything seemed fairly well settled, so we snipped and dipped the umbilical cord and determined that said lamb was a she.


I'm pretty sure this girl is brown, not black, but I'll have a better idea in a few days. Maggie is being a very attentive mother, and, aside from helping her get pointed toward the food, the lamb seems very vigorous and eager to eat!

Next post will be...Wynona's lambs???

Fast-forward 6 hours...

When I checked on Maggie at 5 this morning before going to work I was shocked to find a second lamb in the stall! After over an hour of watching Maggie clean and tend the ewe, I was convinced she was done lambing. We closed the barn and went to bed. This morning, this is what I saw:

You can imagine my confusion when I pulled the light string above the stall. A black HST lamb in a stall with a fawn-colored, primarily non-spotted mom sired by a solid ram? It couldn't be! He looks so much like Crystal that I had to check on her before I could believe he was Maggie's. I guess Maggie must carry an HST pattern gene??? From my readings on Shetland genetics, I didn't realize the whole HST came as a package and could skip a generation. Maggie's sire, Xavier, was an HST, which must be where this little guy got his patterning. I guess this means Maggie's sticking around. I really love the pattern and I hope one of these days we'll actually get our own HST ewe.

So now I'm really done until the next lamb(s) arrive. I'm almost positive all of the other ewes will at least twin, and at this point we're one for one: one black, one brown, one solid, one spotted, one ewe, one ram. What a package! (See, I told you lambing really was better than Christmas.)

Ewes are due...T-0 Weeks

So...this should technically be the last post before lambs, BUT I can't make any promises. The earliest possible lambing date is March 30th according to an online ewe gestation calculator, and, unless Clover didn't take, she is due April 4th. So I'm hoping for lambs by Easter, but I always over-anticipate lambing, so we'll see what we get.

Here are the girls, hopefully for the last time before lambs, in my best-guess reverse order for lambing...

Kira - A 4 year-old ewe who twinned (ram and ewe) last year.

Poa - A 7 year-old ewe who has twinned twice on our farm (twin ewes '11, twin rams '10).

Crystal - A 3 year-old ewe who twinned (rams) last year.

Mocha - A 4 year-old ewe who twinned (ram and ewe) last year.

Clover - A 4 year-old ewe who singled (ram) last year and twinned (ram and ewe) in '10.

Wynona - A 6 year-old ewe who twinned (ewe and ram) in '10 at our farm and had previous lambings.

Maggie - Wynona's 2 year-old; a first-time lamber.

The next post will be in one week, or sooner if lambs arrive.

Ewes are due...T-1

Well, I think we have more than a week to go, but that's usually how this seems to work. I'm still hopeful that Clover will lamb on the 4th, but I'm not sure how many lambs we'll have before then. I'm guessing that we'll be pretty busy between Easter and my April vacation, and by the looks of things they'll all lamb close to one another and primarily have twins.

They're all getting quite a bit larger around the middle, but I've yet to see an impressive udder; maybe they're waiting until the end to bag up. These last few HOT days they've been doing a lot of grunting and groaning and plain old cud chewing. They've also been very vocal about getting a bit of grain each night, which never seems like it's enough to please them.

Poa was the only one too lazy to get up for a back-end photo. She, just like last year, insists on hoarding a flake of hay to herself and then sun bathing off in a remote corner.

Poa looks so happy. She really is getting wide and a small udder. I think she'd prefer it if I left her alone.

Maggie has really become a barrel the last few days. Her udder's still small, but she's looking like she might twin. A typical first-timer, she seems the most uncomfortable and confused about her growing sides.

Wynona may just be the first to go, or the first to grow an udder. She's finally let me sneak up from behind to get a few photos, and she's looking like she's got more than one lamb in those sides.
Kira still has a very small udder, but those lambs are certainly growing. Last year she was not much larger than this when she twinned. Somehow she seems to hide her pregnancy well.
Last year Crystal had a HUGE udder weeks before lambing. This year her sides are so large I hope she doesn't wait until her udder gets huge before she lambs.
Mocha and Crystal each twinned within two days of one another last year. Both had ENORMOUS udders and were about as wide as they are today when they lambed. Neither ewe has an impressive udder yet, so I'm wondering just how many lambs each is carrying. Mocha's udder is so small that it looks like it did a full three weeks from lambing last year. I really hope she doesn't have quite that far to go or she'll never push out those lambs.
Clover is most definitely having twins. Last year she singled a very large ram lamb and was much smaller than she is now at lambing. Two years ago she was quite wide, much like she is today. In the last week I haven't been able to step foot inside the paddock without a forceful snuggle from Clover. She insists on getting scratches, and if I stop for one moment I become a scratching post. She's even put her head on my shoulder and tried climbing into my lap! What a BIG baby.

So, there it is. Your guess is as good as mine. We will have lambs in April, but I'm not sure we'll see any in March. Next week I'll start locking them in the barn at night as a precautionary measure, but I really doubt that there will be lambs before the first. If all goes as planned there will be one more "udder shot" post before lambs.

Ewes are due...T-2 Weeks

The ewes are due in just over two weeks. Clover's exact date is April 4th, but Cedar was introduced a few days before, so anytime after the 30th of March we could have lambs. Based on previous years' experiences, I'm probably a few weeks too soon and we won't see any lambs until after Easter.

The ewes are starting to really pop out now.


Here's the weekly line-up of back-end photos with a brief analysis.
Clover is really starting to get large. She looks much closer in size to two years ago than last year, which means she'll probably twin. She's due April 4th, and I'm guessing she will be pretty true to her date.
Cyrstal is getting a little udder, but nothing like she had last year at this time. I'm guessing she'll also lamb just after Clover, and she also looks large enough for twins.
Kira looks like she did last year about a month before lambing. She looked tiny last year, too, and she still had twins, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Maggie is starting to get an udder, but it's hard to tell if she'll single or double. Since it's her first year I don't have any comparison photos to help me predict what, or when, she'll lamb.

Mocha, looking huge like last year. Her udder is still quite small, but she may be one of the first to lamb.

Poa's looking small this year, but she's been the last to lamb for the last two years. She may still have a month or more before she lambs.

Wynona - She's so hard to get a picture of from behind. She looks like she did two years ago about three weeks prior to lambing. I'm guessing she'll twin near Easter.

Though the title does say T-2 weeks, I think we still have a good three weeks before we actually see lambs. I'll keep posting weekly until they arrive.

Ewes are due...T-3 Weeks

Here are the one-week-post-shearing photos of the ewes, taken on Wednesday. This was the girls' first day out after shearing due to a cold snap we had Monday night. The first confirmed due date is April, 4th, but I suspect we might get a lamb or two a few days before that.

Wynona - She never turns her back on a human.

Poa

Mocha

Maggie

Crystal

Kira

Clover

And here are some more flattering photos. The girls seem larger from the front.

Maggie

Mocha

Wynona

The yearling ewes enjoy the fresh air and sunshine.

The ram/wether group has been relocated to the back field. All are getting along just fine. Cedar is such a mellow ram, and it's extra nice that he is halter trained!
Gus seems to be snubbing Mac and Robbie as they pose for a photo opp.
That's it for now. Three weeks until the first possible lambs arrive. I'll post again next week.