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| Apollo |
I'm so happy! Faith had her babies today - Apollo, a beautiful moorit-grey spotted ram lamb and Amanda, a solid moorit ewe. I haven't weighed them yet, but I would guess 6.5 to 7 pounds as they are quiet a bit smaller than April and Athena were at birth.
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| Apollo and Amanda |
I really love the dispositions Heathcliffe is passing on to his lambs and I now know that he carries the spotting gene. Apollo and Amanda came running up to me this morning and they were just a few hours old. Amazing to me! I have turned April into a little snuggler and Athena likes to sit on my lap. April was very jealous tonight when I was scratching Athena and so she turned to Greg for some attention.
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| April |
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| Athena |
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| Athena |
Heather is the last ewe to lamb and I think she has about 3-4 weeks to go. I'm kinda worried about her since she is a yearling ewe. She is about the same size as Gretchen, but not nearly as muscular. I probably won't breed yearling ewes again.
I am getting a bid from a fence builder on fencing in my back pasture with goat/sheep woven wire. That will make pasture rotation a lot easier since we plan on creating a lane from the pasture to the old barn for summertime shelter where the sheep can get in front of fans. I don't have any trees in the pasture and I'm concerned about the summer heat. Fans in the old barn will provide them some relief and the old barn stays pretty cool in the heat of the summer.
I love old barns that were built with large lofts and some where for the heat to esacpe too. Our barn is not fancy, but it makes a nice sheep barn. I believe the barn is about 100 years old since it has pegs in oak timbers instead of nails in some spots. I was told it use to be a dairy barn a long time ago and then it housed coon dog kennels. Oh, the history and stories that barn could tell.
Time to start planting my raised bed gardens, just need the weather to warm up and dry out. Have any of you started your garden yet? If so, what are you planning on planting this year? I'll do a garden blog update after I get my plants in.
Apollo is such a striking lamb -- and look at those HUGE horn buds!
ReplyDeleteTammy, your little Apollo is adorable! His sister is a cutie, too...but we are over-run with black lambs this year so I am partial to lambs of other colors right now! Haha...I like variety!
ReplyDeleteWe have an old barn just like yours, only red! It had been unused, except as a garbage dump, for at least 12 years, maybe longer. Ages ago this was a pig farm, I'm told, so I'm guessing it housed pigs at one time. It has been the perfect sheep barn.
My husband has been putting up our rotation pastures, too, and we have a run down the middle of them (they open up on either side of the run. We have 10 mini-pastures, 5 on each side of the run. Then he will do 10 or twelve more in the large pasture next to that set.
I love having these sheep!
Those spots are great!! And they are all so friendly! Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteFaith's little ram is adorable! It sounds like you are really enjoying your sheep.
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