2023 Lambing Season: A Recap…

It all started when…

My first lambing season is complete! If I had to sum it up in one sentence, I'd say it ended up better than expected.

If you're interested in vicariously raising sheep through the sharing of my exploits, this story is for you...

A ewe's gestation is 148 days. I've been breeding rabbits for several years and their gestation is 31 days. Not 30, not 32, always 31. So I wasn't sure if sheep are as exact, but that's how I managed the grass leading up to lambing. The first pair of twins were born on Saturday, April 1st. Day 145, followed by a pair of triplets and a single on Sunday. The first issue I had was that the flock were still finishing up the rationed grass in the back pasture before being moved to the front 'lambing pasture' I had been reserving all winter.

Getting them up there meant crossing a swamp. Sheep hate water, and even worse for fresh lambs. But it was a pressing problem as I was on the last 2 days of grass back there, and it's in the back near the river which is pretty vulnerable to predators, PLUS the more lambs that dropped back there, the harder the move.

Thus began operation swamp cross on Monday, April 3rd. A friend and I had to plank the crossing over the swamp to entice the ewes to cross (not easy, but eventually we accomplished that), then I had to carry over all the fresh lambs and get their mothers to follow, and not abandon them. All worked out, and just in time because another pair of twins were born an hour later, and another pair the next day and the next day, and the next....

Onto the lambing pasture and off to the races!

Lambing on pasture in April has some big risks. April is a tumultuous month of weather regardless of where you are in the U.S. This April was no exception. I feel like the first week of April it hailed 4x a day. But there was also sunshine mixed in. That was until around the 10th. It rained hard and cold for multiple days without letting up. The water table was almost on the surface, which is a nightmare, and the little lambs could not get dry. That's when I lost the first lamb. For whatever reason, it just wasn't staying as close to Mom like its twin and didn't make it through. A few days later I experience what I expected a lot more of. A breech birth. I got there way too late and the mother was exhausted on the ground with a dead lamb stuck in the canal. I assisted her in pulling it out. She made it through and is doing just fine, but it was a sad day. I experienced one other similar breech birth as well.

In the end, we ended up with 15 lambs on 12 ewes, with 3 lost, and one ewe who apparently never got pregnant. Not bad at all!

Today they're trying to rotate around the farm and the neighbors' fast enough to stay ahead of the grass, and getting THICK. I can't believe how fast these lambs grow on mother's milk and forage.

Pasture lambing in April, I expected a lot more loss than there was so it's been a real fortune. Psalms 115 comes to mind here, "Not to us O Lord, Not to us, but to your name give the glory..." because I don't even feel I can take credit. All I did was let them do what they were designed to do and not interfere too much!

It feels weird to already talk about butchering when they're still so fresh and adorable, but I'm gonna have 7 lambs to market next December, and 2 are already reserved, so wanna get in on this year's crop with a whole or half lamb, don't linger too long!