Scarlet

A single tear rolled down my face, as Scarlet slumped to the bed of my truck. The drug that the vet injected into her jugular vein worked fast. Her death was peaceful.  She died in my arms.

A month or so ago, Scarlet had begun breathing very heavily. In fact, you could hear her breathing from across the barn. Her nostrils were also very clean, like a horse's. I treated her with two different antibiotics, but to no avail. Then one day, a growth appeared outside her right nostril. The growth, a probable tumor explained her labored breathing. It would have to be dealt with.

Scarlet raised twin rams in 2012.

A vet removed the growth, but the stem was still inside her nose. Removal of the growth did not have any effect on her breathing. There was minimal bleeding. I don't think the removal caused much pain.

If the tumor was cancerous, Scarlet would have to be euthanized. If the growth was benign, she would require surgery. The surgery would be extensive, expensive, and not necessarily successful. Without surgery, Scarlet's breathing would remain strained and the growth would likely expand to her other nostril. The vet said there was already some inflammation in her nasal passages.

Scarlet's first lamb.

Scarlet was six years old. She had raised eleven lambs, including one set of triplets and a single ram lamb this year. I decided it was best to have her euthanized.

Baby Scarlet

I'll always remember Scarlet as one of my favorite ewes. My niece had named her. From the day Scarlet was born, she was sweet and friendly. She was never afraid of me. She was a good producer, who raised many good lambs that I sold for breeding.

Getting bigger

The lambs are getting bigger. I've started the process of weaning the lambs born in February. To do this, I reduce protein in the the ewe's grain ration, then I reduce and eventually eliminate grain from their ration. I put the ewes in the hoop house and feed them a low quality grass hay. After eating the grass hay for a week or two, they'll be pastured at my dad's place.

Katahdin Mules born in February

There is still one more yearling ewe left to lamb (Belle).  I suspect she will have her lamb(s) sometime in May. For now, she is still co-habitating with the Katahdin yearling ram (Phelps). The yearlings that have lambed are doing well with their lambs. Today, their lambs will finally get access to creep feed and other lambs (to play with).

This chunky Katahdin ram lamb gets
more than his fair share of creep feed.

I've been doing some more re-arranging.  More ewes were brought in the barn for the weaning process. A group of four ewes with triplets will be put out in the front pasture. I am making an area in the front of the hoop house where they can come in for shelter and where the lambs can access creep feed.  I'm still waiting to have the plastic shelter that was twisted by the hurricane fixed.

This 2 year old Mule has a Lacaune-X ram lamb.

I have lots of vaccinating to do. My goal is to vaccinate the lambs when they approximately 6-8 and 10-12 weeks of age. Their dams were vaccinated during late pregnancy; passive immunity shouldn't start to wane until the lambs are 6 to 8 weeks of age.

I vaccinate orphan lambs at 4 weeks age, since they may not have consumed sufficient quantities of their dam's colostrum. Today, I vaccinated the three orphans. It was a challenge. While I was trying to inject, the other lambs would poke their faces into where I was injecting. 

The orphans are growing very well.

The orphans have been reduced to two feedings per day, 16 oz per feeding. They are also drinking milk from a bucket. They are about four weeks old now. I will wean them when they are approximately six weeks old. It is such a challenge to get them to eat creep feed, else I'd wean them earlier, as they are growing quite well. They'd better! Milk replacer is expensive and they are drinking it like gangbusters.

Make money with triplets

The way to make money raising sheep is to have ewes that give birth to and raise triplets and to select replacement females from these litters.

The best ewes have triplets by the time they are two to three years old. They have triplets multiple times. Their lambs are equal in size, other than gender differences.

5 year old Katahdin ewe (Bridget) with triplet Mules

Reba's first set of triplets

Triplets two years in a row for #984

Miss Piggy's RR triplet lambs

Triplets two years in a row for my woolly Katahdin, #884

Muttley had a baby

Muttley gave birth to a big ram lamb today. She has a big udder to feed him. So far, she's an attentive mother.

Muttley was born last year on my mother's birthday, March 16. She was delivered, along with her brother, via c-section. The dam, a ewe I called Dumpling, had to be euthanized immediately after the delivery. She had developed severe problems in all four of her feet. I diagnosed it as septic pedal arthritis. She had infections in the feet that had not responded to treatments. Just prior to the c-section, she had finally gone down, after standing for weeks. She had also stopped eating much. Dumpling had a story of her own.

Muttley and her newborn

Muttley and her brother were bottle-fed from  the beginning. Both got sick when they were 48 hours old, but responded to antibiotic treatments. I wondered if the infection in their mother's feet had somehow transferred to them. For the next five weeks, Muttley and her brother nursed aggressively from their bottles and played with vigor. When they were five weeks old, they got sick again, especially Muttley. I treated both lambs, but focused on Muttley because she seemed to be the sickest.  Her brother died.

I saved Muttley. One of her problems was constipation. It took a fleet's enema and castor oil to get her to finally turn the corner. For several days, I fed her pedialyte in a bottle. It took a long time before she returned to her vigorous self.  But eventually she did. She has grown into a nice yearling.

As a Lacaune cross, I decided to keep Muttley for breeding.  I hope it turns out to be a good decision. Muttley's breeding is Katahdin x Dorper x Lacaune x Hampshire x Suffolk (hence her name). She is more than 50 percent wool sheep, so will likely need shearing. Her tailed was docked.

Farm update

Another yearling lambed. #214, one of the quads from last year, gave birth to a single lamb last night.  A ewe lamb. RR. Three more yearlings to go, including the two Lacaune crosses. Can't wait to see how they do. One of the crosses, "Muttley" has a big udder for a yearling. Another of the "yearlings," the only Mule I kept from last year, won't be a year old until next month.

This dam and daughter always lay close together.

The grass is gradually starting to grow and the sheep are eating less hay.  Thank God. Hay is so expensive and I can't figure out how to keep them from wasting so much. Today, I bought some soybean hulls to feed to the rams and the "free loaders" in the front yard. I may substitute hulls for hay for some of the other sheep. Not only are the pelleted hulls cheaper than hay, but they are easier to feed and there shouldn't be any waste.

A cool spring has delayed grazing

All the lambs seem to be doing well. The older lambs in the back pasture are eating a little over a pound of creep feed per day. The "inside" lambs are probably averaging about 0.5 lbs. of creep per day. Outside, they are getting more barley and pellets. Inside they are getting more cracked corn and  soybean meal.

The three orphan lambs are doing well. They are drinking from both bottles and the bucket. Two of the lambs are from a ewe that had mastitis. They are Lacaune crosses. The other lamb (brown) is the smallest of a set of triplets that a yearling had. She was raising all three, but I decided to take the smallest one for artificial rearing.

Orphan pen

Next week, I will need to re-arrange again, so I can start the weaning process on the ewes that lambed in the first round.  Hopefully, the three yearlings will lamb soon, so I can stop the 11 p.m. check.

Some more pictures

Yearling ewe with one of her triplet lambs

Twin ewe lamb with unique markings

Miss Piggy's triplet lambs

Two of Reba's triplet lambs

Couple of Katahdin lambs

Almost finished

The 2013 lambing season is almost complete. There are over 70 lambs on the ground, with only four ewe lambs (yearlings) left to lamb.  One yearling has already given birth to triplets.  She is raising two. I decided to remove the third one for bottle feeding. This is the first time I have had a yearling ewe have triplets.

My string of unassisted births ended with two ewes. The first ewe was a two year old ewe that was having trouble pushing a fifteen pounder out.  Either she was too tired or lazy. I pulled it out for her. It was an easy assist.

A pair of March-born Katahdin ram lambs

The situation with the next ewe was more serious. Her first lamb was breech. It was easy to get out. I didn't have to go in very far. She delivered the second lamb on her own. The third lamb was stuck with its head out.  Both legs were back. It was easy to pull this lamb out. I usually just extend one leg out.

After these two assisted births, the ewes went back to lambing on their own. The last mature ewe lambed yesterday. #077 had two big Katahdin lambs, a ram and a ewe.

It's impossible to keep lambs out of the octagon feeder.

I have another ewe with mastitis. I should have culled her last year (her triplets lambs didn't grow as well as they should have), but I didn't. After weaning, her lambs caught up, and I appreciated the income from three lambs.  This year, I had to remove her twin lambs for bottle feeding.  After treatment, one half of her udder is producing milk, but I don't know if I'll be able to put a lamb back on or not.

So, I have three lambs in the orphan pen.  I am trying to teach them to nurse from a bucket.  They'll do it while I hold them, but I'm not so sure they drink much while I'm at work. I've dubbed the twin ewe lambs Josephine and Jezibell.  The triplet ram lamb from the yearling ewe is Quincy. He's half the size of the ewes. He weighed 4.5 lbs. at birth; the ewe lambs were around 10.

The February lambs are eating like pigs and growing like gangbusters. I put a group of eight ewes and their lambs in the back pasture. They have a shed for shelter. I'll continue to feed hay and grain until the grass comes in. The lambs have an outdoor creep feeder.

February-born lambs

I'll do more re-arranging this weekend. I want to give most of the ewes and lambs access to pasture, even though there isn't much pasture growth yet. Spring is very slow coming.  Night time temperatures continue to be on the cool side. Day time temperatures seem to be edging up.

It's been a good lambing season. No lambs have died.  A few udder problems have been the only downside. The split lambing season has worked out well.