Farm Journal 2003
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The 2003 spring lambing began March 14. We bred so we would not have lambs in the cold winter months. We started the spring lambing season with 16 registered Blackbelly Barbados adult ewes, a nice looking registered adult Katahdin ram, and 5 fall Blackbelly Barbados ram lambs. The ewes bred for the spring lambing where bred to a great polled ram named Nut Rageous.
Ewes bred after January 21 will begin lambing in mid June and will be from the Katahdin ram leased from
On the afternoon of March 14, Lulu was the first ewe to lamb this year. She has beautiful twin ewe lambs.
On March 15, Farica, Janet's favorite ewe (because she is so gentle and friendly) gave birth to twins, a ewe and a ram lamb.
On March 16, Gina gave birth for the first time to a single ram lamb. It was a long birthing, we discovered her in early labor around 12:30 p.m. and she had the lamb at 6:20 P.M. This picture was taken about 5 minutes after the birth while Gina was cleaning up her lamb.
March 18, Bertha had trouble delivering twins. She must have started labor in the middle of the night and we did not discover her until about 7:30 a.m. Bertha delivered twins with assistance from our neighbor (a vet) who came over and pulled the lambs. The first, a ewe lamb, was dead and the second, a ram lamb was alive. Tough delivery for Bertha, but she is doing well. She is caring for the lamb and the lamb is doing well.
March 20, Brooke, daughter of Bertha, had twins, a ewe and ram lamb.
March 22, Yona, one of our largest ewes, had twins, a ewe and a ram lamb.
March 22, Bella gave birth to her first lamb, a ewe.
March 23, Bethany, another one of Bertha's daughters, gave birth to a single ram lamb. This is her first lambing.
March 26, Bridget, another one of Bertha's daughters, and Brooke twin sister, had the first triplet delivered on our farm. They were all ewe lamb. The good news is that two are alive. The sad news is that one was stillborn.
A couple hours after Bridget had her lambs on March 26, Irene had twin ram lambs. The first picture is Irene giving birth to the first lamb. The second picture is seconds later. The third picture is about 30 minutes late, seconds after second lambs birth.
On Sunday, March 30, Helen, one of our larger ewes who most of the time twins, gave birth to a single (but large) ram lamb.
March 31, Janet's birthday, Dixie had twins.
April 27, Fran, our bottle baby from January 2002, had a sweet little ewe lamb we named Fannie
June 26, Scarlet had our first Blackbelly and Katahdin cross lamb. It was a ewe lamb we named Sara.
June 27, Camill, one of our favorite ewes had our second Blackbelly and Katahdin cross lamb. It was a very large ram lamb. At one month old he was as large as our 3 and 4 month old Blackbelly lambs. His name is Casey.
This is the end of our 2003 lambing. We are now planning to breed our ewes starting the end of September so our 2004 spring lambs will start coming in the end of February through the first of March. Thank you for visiting our 2003 Sheep Journal.
