In all we ended with 15 lambs out of seven ewes, which makes our lambing rate just over 200%. This is pretty respectable since the average Shetland produces at 150% (or 1.5 lambs per season). Our lambing rate is even higher if we include the two lambs out of Crystal and Kira's triplets that didn't make it. Genetically speaking our small sample pool followed the statistics pretty closely. Of the 15 lambs here are some numbers: 7 rams and 8 ewes, 6 brown and 9 black, 5 spotted and 10 solid. We actually have quite a nice showing of the many Shetland phenotypes in this crop of lambs from our small flock.
Here they are from oldest to youngest:
Maggie's twins - HST black ram and solid moorit (fawn) ewe
Crystal's twins - HST black horned ewe and black krunet ewe with white tipped tail
Clover's twins - solid moorit ewe and ram (with Maggie's ewe at left)
Mocha's twins - solid black ram and solid moorit ram
Poa's twins - solid black ewe and spotted moorit (fawn) ewe
Kira's twins - solid gray (black with "sugar lips") ram and ewe
And finally, after weeks of waiting, I came to the barn this morning to find this...
Our first set of surviving triplets! Wynona, despite all of her less flattering qualities, is an excellent mother. She has one VERY LARGE (9 lbs!) spotted black ram, one medium (6 lbs) solid black ram, and one tiny (5 lbs) solid moorit ewe. All did very well nursing and moving around today and tomorrow they will finally be introduced to the other ewes and lambs to conclude the chaos of lambing season.
Now comes the hard part: naming and deciding which of these girls (sorry fellas!) will be staying here and which will need to find new flocks to join.
Next post...layer chicks arrive on Wednesday!
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