March..............

is not "out like a lamb".............

in weather........

or in sheep.......

or even if you consider goats........

Still waiting

Every year this happens...Everyone else is having lambs, and I have been up for many nights staring at fat sheep.  After a while I start wondering in a sleep-deprived haze whether they are really PG or just fat.  What do you think- PG or fat?

This spring has been cold too.  We sheared in the middle of March which should have been fine, but it has been much cooler than usual, and the sheep and goats are spending a lot of time in the barn.  We still have tarps over the doors to try and keep some warmth in and the breeze out.  Hannah, our Pygora goat, initially started shivering so I put an accidentally felted wool sweater on her which she wore for 3 days.  I had moved the wethers and some goats into a field that had a good shelter and grass to eat, but one evening they were hollering and trying to bust through the fence.  I took pity on them and moved them back to the barn.  That night there was a torrential and cold downpour- I am glad they let me know beforehand!  Then yesterday Gwennyth, our thin retired ewe, was shivering.  I tried to put the sweater on her too- she would have none of it- she kicked it off three times before I gave up and this morning she's shivering again. What to do?

This year's lamb/kid watch is a little different than some- Tom's on a trip so I am on my own. I have not been alone during lambing since I met him in 2001.  I did manage to take off of work but am getting less sleep now than when I do work.  Plus I aggravated my back- not sure if it was hauling 50# bags of feed or carting bales of hay through the muck.  Some mornings (like this one) I wonder if I am tough enough to be a shepherd.

On a brighter note, it is a beautiful morning after sleeting most of last night.  The sun is up, the sky is blue, the air is crisp and the birds are signing.  And it's my birthday!

Waiting for lambs- bunnies are born

We have been checking on the ewes every 1-2 hours for 2 days now without any lambs produced.  Then this afternoon Hazel, our Red Satin Angora rabbit, produced 4 bunnies.  They look great- one is a runt but well fed.  Without only three others to compete with, he/she may do just fine.  Ma Bell is also supposed to be due today- she's spending a lot of time in the nest box but is not making a wool nest though.  So the waiting continues....

Bags O' Wool

I have been skirting like crazy.  I have a hog panel set up on the back porch and between squalls I skirt the fleeces.  I have sold and shipped eleven of them but still have 12 more available for sale.  I only have 6 sellable fleeces left to skirt!

Situation at Schoonover Farm

So we appear to have a problem here.  On shearing day we noticed that our one CVM ewe (not so affectionately called Mutiny) had udder swelling.  We bought her when she was 6 months old, and she has never been bred.  We have had no ram escapes since last July so we were not sure what happened.  Then today I noticed that Wilma is looking wider than the other sheep and has some udder development:

So we herded the possibly pregnant hussies into a pen so we could start feeding them small amounts of grain.  Then I got to thinking- we have a cryptorchid ram lamb Barney that we had banded at 2 weeks of age.  He is too small to put in with the rams or to butcher.  I did some research on artificial cryptorchid sheep from Australia- that is they band the ram lambs after pushing the testicles into the abdominal cavity.  These sheep act like rams and have better meat production, but they are infertile and are run with the flock.  So I though it was safe to keep Barney in with the flock unless he started getting aggressive.  Now I am not so sure.
So we may have 6 ewes we did not intend to breed bred.  Some of them had birthing difficulties before and some I did not feel were as marketable.  There are also the two Gotland ewes and two skinny sheep that were briefly in with the flock as well.  So this could be a BIG disaster.  And since Barney is not registerable (for good reason) none of these lambs would be worth much.

So I need some opinions- do udders ever develop without a pregnancy?  Does anyone have any experience with banded cryptorchid rams?

On a different note, we bought back a Nigerian Dwarf doe.  It's Meadowlark out of our doe Magpie and buck CTC Mr. Mahogany.  She is a pretty (but a little chunky) doe but not friendly.  The family that bought her never bonded with her, and the child is losing interest in the goats.  So it was in everyone's best interest to have her move back.