[Closed] Lambing Live, STW style

Crosshair - it looks flat where you are. Do your sheep go up into the fells? They are gorgeous, I would love a cuddle.

Last year nbt and I were walking in the outer Hebrides, when we came across a 'black face ewe' about to pop. Hiding behind a large rock, we witnesses the exciting sight of the birth. Lamb was licked clean and was up and about in no time. A much better experience than being in the smelly crowded lambing sheds.

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Here is the lamb seconds after the birth.

And so it starts.

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Rude awakening by Birgit this morning at 6. The ewe we had separated due to her having a monstrous belly had given birth to 4 (she was only supposed to have 3. Unfortunately 1 was born dead and another was weak (but currently very lively in a box by the Rayburn). While getting her sorted I heard something over the wall and pop, the next ones were there

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And since we grouped our ewes with specific rams last autumn, we finally now know which of our white rams has been throwing these black lambs over the past 4 years. He obviously has a residual Blue Texel gene. Both girls, so I will be keeping them 🙂

*likes*

welshfarmer - Member
After that they ....... carry on with eating grass and trying to think up ways to die.

My father always used to say that it's what sheep are best at - dying.

A very good morning ! Thanks for the thread @welsh at this hectic time, love it.

No. Sleep for next few weeks, what extra rations did you feed to twin and triplet ewes?

Will you try and put orphans with another ewe or hand rear them?

From that photo it looks like you are over the hill from Llangorse.

@ Pigface.. over the hill 3 times till you get to the Llanthony Valley.

The twins and triplets are separated out from the singles and fed in their groups. Triplet feeding started 6 weeks ago on a rising ration so they are currently on about a lb a day. Twins get about 1/2 a pound of ewe ration per day. Singles get nothing extra and have in fact not even had any hay/silage for the past 4 weeks as the grass has been growing here. We only bother with an adoption these days if a ewe loses her only lamb and we can use its' skin. We have treid over the years to adopt a triplet onto a single ewe but the success rate was so poor we don't bother now. Just have a creche and an auto feeder and rear a big batch of orphans. Works well and much more successful than adoptions.

To everyone who has commented so far. Thanks for kind words and anecdotes. Keep them coming and I will try and keep you updated. If it all goes quiet you can be sure things are getting stressful here. Ah well, better go and feed the tiddler in the box.

bookmarked to show the kids. Great thread

we spent one Easter break in the Brecon and the kids had a really great time on the farm and they got to see and learn a bit about process and the wee ones.

I must admit I was a bit mesmerized by the fact that there were dead sheep in a big kind of bin..

The views on/from your farm are stunning welshfarmer

My father always used to say that it's what sheep are best at - dying.

Thanks Welshfarmer, agree with the orphan regime. That's how we did it.

So Blacks rather than Beacons, lovely part of the world.

Thanks for the thread. Very entertaining. Why are you specifically keeping the black female lambs? A part from black jumpers being popular 🙂 , is their more financial gain to them ?

Yesterdays ride find of lambs:

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Bit of a thread hi-jack but we're only a short ride away in Talybont, got a shepherd's hut and cabin so if anyone fancies seeing some lambing and getting out on the bike then have a look at us on AirBnB (Aber Farm, Talybont on Usk).
We lamb our small flock of Welsh ewes outside. It does seem to keep overnight births to a minimum, around 75% of ewes lambing at dawn and dusk.

Edit, forgot to say the girls ought to start 6th April, but a few earlies are expected the week before due to an incident with a rather energetic young tup and a fence or 2...

My favourite time of the year.
Those little black lambs are gorgeous.

Am also liking the Jacob's lambs.
My friend who kept Jacob sheep had a nasty accident. He was feeding from a bucket, 1 ewe got too excited and jumped up. Its top horn went right through my friends lip. Could have been serious if a centimetre or 2 higher.

Well it is all go here at the moment. Funny how it coincides with a change for the worse in the weather! All my triplets seem to be having quads and these early lambers all seem to have too little milk. It is always the first & last ones that are the problem cases. So currently have 2 on the bottle and one more to join them in the morning after it has got its' colostrum from mum. Got a problem with one of my little bottle lambs not wanting to suck. Kind of drives you mad and would test the patience of a saint. The other (her sister) has taken to it without a problem. Anyway, enough talking, cut to the cute pics 🙂

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Stop it with the lamb pics. It's almost making me want to become a veggie!

Is it a *thing* that sheep like bread too? We stayed at a B&B in Froome a while back, and the owner gave us some bread to give to the sheep one morning. I thought he was taking the Michael, but it seemed they couldn't get enough!

No lambs yet in Gairlochy. Mmmmmmmmm lamb.

Farm next to our yard kicks off beginning of April, they're already looking for extra hands, about a thousand ewes with twins. The singles are on their other farm around the hill.

Another friend has already started above Rhosgoch.

Both are areas prone to snow, even at Easter. There have been lambs near Brecon since February where it's lower.

Pretty sure mine would love bread. They aint getting it though 🙂 Greedy things get too much as it is. Spoilt rotten by mrs farmer. seems we are on the triplets at the moment. Another one lining up to pop. Better give her 30 mins and then go and see if all is OK. Very high chance of malpresentation with triplets. Had a set yesterday with 2 heads trying to come out at the same time!

Love this thread. Learning lots of lamb facts.

I once caught a woman trying to feed my horse (years ago) with cucumber sandwiches. When I explained about the diet of these animals, her reply was "but she likes them" 🙄

Great pics and you've clearly got your work cut out with multiple births, 2 heads at once sounds terrifying! Do hope the ones struggling to feed are now getting the hang of it.

Hope that you manage to fit in some sleep, guess you must have some sort of shift system going on.

Looking forward to further updates with pics. 😀

Update on the triplet I was waiting for at midnight. I gave her and hour and still nothing so decided to have a quick look. It was instantly obvious that the lamb wasn't presented correctly (head stretched forward resting on the 2 front legs) as all I could feel was 1 leg and the back of a head. Relatively straight forward to push the lamb back a few cms, find the mouth, and rotate the head into the correct direction. Then pulling on the one leg while guiding the head, out the lamb pops. Being a mature triplet bearing ewe she had plenty of room so it was very straightforward. Big singles in young ewes can often get really stuck if not 100% perfect in presentation. Anyway, all was good but the ewe was very tired so I made the decision to fetch out the other 2 lambs while I was there. There is nothing worse than coming back in an hour and finding dead lambs as she is too tired to look after them when they arrive. I left mum with all 3 (very big for triplets) lambs doing well.

@cinnamon girl. Me and Mrs WF have a good shift system that generally works great. I am a night owl and she is a morning person. So I will stay up and do all the evening shift until about 1 am before turning in. Birgit then gets up around 3.30-4am and continues. Most lambs are born late evening or at dawn so between us we will be available for 99% of births should help be needed. The worst days for me are when there is a big problem at around 4am and I have to get up then to help. I end up like a Zombie all day. But I guess anyone who has had kids will relate to this 🙂

damn just seen this, heading over to the Gower for a day out today and would have loved to have arranged to pop over and say hi (if welcome of course!).

I have cocked up our lambing this year, we were a bit late getting a new ram (ended up buying a Texel as we can no longer loan our normal one) and then we tried sponging as I now I have a full time contract an hour away but that failed miserably and now we have a spread of 6 bloody weeks for just 7 ewes. Thinking about keeping some of the boys entire this year and selling for breeding as our big Texel ewe throws lovely boys.

Hmmm, rough with the smooth. Got this little fella in the warming box. His temperature is way down (low 20s). Be amazed if we can save him. He was one of a triplet but both his siblings were born dead so I am hoping to save him so that he can go back with his mum. If not then I will have to skin him and make a coat for one of the other bottle lambs and get mum to adopt them. Typical that this ewe has the most milk of any of the ewes to lamb this far and yet manages to end up with no lambs! Ah well, I better go and milk her now as the lamb will need to be fed through a tube whatever. And if it dies I will be able to save the colostrum for another lamb that might need it..

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come on lamb, we're all rooting for you.

Looking promising. Temp is now up to 33.3 degrees. Maybe we can save him after all

could you not fashion him a coat? Something of natural fibres, high thermal insulation properties, maybe treat it with some kind of oil or wax to waterproof it.......

🙂 what were you thinking. A mink?

Come on, lamby!

Looks like a Chuck to me.

Go on son.

Great thread and good luck. Roughly how many are you expecting and how long are you going to have to hold vigil?

🙁 Well Chuck didn't make it.

His skin is currently confusing his mum as he appears to have come back to life! The adoption lamb has sucked but she is still very wary. Hopefully she will calm down by morning and accept him. Expecting roughly 360 lambs in total. Rams were running with the ewes for about 6-7 weeks so could have lambs any time up till end of April. We do colour the rams bellies though so we know roughly how many won't lamb in the first 3 weeks (about 20 of them)

Great to have the updates, good news and bad. Lovely photos on the prior page. I think that the harsh reality of those that don't make it adds to part of the joy at those who do.

You mentioned a lamb that wouldn't suck, is tongue tie an issue with lambs which is sometimes found in babies?

Andyl - have you thought about using a castrated teaser tup? I have a couple of Welsh teasers I use and they also keep the other rams company (making loading into a box easier for some reason when I bring them home!).

I always find different people's opinions on fostering lambs (and lambing techniques in general) fascinating. Not originally coming from farming stock myself, but now loving it, every day is a learning opportunity.

A neighbour of ours lambs over 1000 cross-bred ewes and mules, every triplet/quad is fostered either onto a single or a ewe who has lost her lamb/s. They hand strip colostrum and tube every lamb to ensure the intake.

I try and save a bit of after-birth to rub on any fostered lambs (as well as the skin), it seems to help confuse the ewe into thinking it's her lamb if she can lick it off a bit, I've had success with fostering lambs up to 2 weeks old with this.

When do you castrate/dock tails Welshfarmer? Talking to one old boy down the market last year, he leaves them completely intact, joking that even tails must weigh something!

mikewsmith - Member

Name and shame the posh bastards, (Northumberland farmers son here) most of my annual cash was from 12-14hr lambing days, anyway most people were always late....
These days I remember how much hard work it all was (Easter hols were never relaxing) and how 2 weeks lambing is really a month

Whereabouts in Northumberland? I have an Aunt and Uncle who were farmers near Stamfordham, loved going up there during lambing...

Lambs seem a little late this year? Normally see plenty by the end of Feb, weather been mild too

Lambs seem a little late this year? Normally see plenty by the end of Feb, weather been mild too

Not sure the mild weather has much to do with lambing time? Or has it?

Don't know, they're like plants aren't they? ;0)

How long can you keep the colostrum? in cows if I remember rightly not long at all.

If not then I will have to skin him and make a coat for one of the other bottle lambs

If you can put the skin of a dead lamb onto an orphan or a lamb that's from a large litter (do sheep have litters? you know what i mean) then the ewe that lost the lamb can sometimes be fooled into thinking it's hers, and will take it on as her own.

(Not a farmer, I learned that from All Creatures Great and Small)

@jekly common technique to get the mother of the dead lamb to accept another. One of the harsh realities of farming.

Yep. Very common, a bit distasteful, but very effective. Mum and adoption are very happy together. The skin-coat will be removed in 2-4 days, by which time it is so high it can almost walk out the shed on its' own 🙂

@ pigface. Colostrum keeps very well in the freezer. We have several tubs of it in there still from last year though we have already used a fair bit. It will get replaced by fresh supplies from this year when some of the big singles start lambing and have more than they need.

Since we started individually marking and tagging our lambs we have realised just how unsuccessful the adoption of a triplet onto a single ewe really seems to be (so you get 2 sheep with 2 lambs each). We have had really well bonded lambs leave the shed, only to find them starving (or worse) 3 days later in the field. I suspect on many really large flocks who "successfully" adopt lots of lambs, the mortality/fox take of the adopted lambs is much higher than is realised. I would rather the extra work of rearing a lamb in a group of orphans and keeping them all alive, than send them down the field never to be seen again.

@ dockstar. Never heard of tongue tied in babies, let alone lambs. We just assume they are a bit simple 🙂 Often there can be nerve damage from a difficult birth, but this often heals pretty quickly over a couple of days if you can keep the lamb alive. Our poor sucker is now drinking much better and should soon be able to work out how the auto-feeder functions so she can feed herself.

@ Houns. Lambs will be born 142 days or so after conception so birth date depends on when you introduce the rams. However, the time a ewe comes into season is strongly linked to day-length and most UK breeds are only in season from the end of September till late November. The lowland breeds are generally several weeks earlier than the hill breeds. This "autumnal" rutting session ensures lambs are born in the spring as the new grass is starting to grow and survival is best assured.

@neilc.. we dock tails & castrate no later than 24 hours. We do not castrate many of the males at the mo. It is something we are still experimenting with. Once we castrated everything and then for years we castrated nothing. Last year we castrated only the males of twins and left singles whole. Theory being that singles grow faster so will be sold earlier before they become a PITA and need to be separated from the girls. To be honest we have had few problems leaving males entire and they sell just as easily. And of course they are "2 stones" heavier 🙂