My babies are leaving home

As of early this afternoon, we are officially finished with 2010 lambing season. Fiona, a CVM ewe that I bred when she was not quite a year old (not something I usually do) gave birth to a beautiful ewe lamb. Just look at those markings! This little girl has stolen my heart already!

I'm very pleased with how things have gone this year. No big catastrophes (always a good thing) and, once again, an over 200% lamb crop. We have had 25 lambs out of 12 ewes (three sets of triplets, 2 singles and the rest twins). The boy/girl count is 12 ram lambs and 13 ewe lambs.

Hannah and her father, Tom

I don't often let my lambs go until they are several months old (with the exception of Graham Lamb, who went off to Sara's to achieve stardom and fame!). This year has been unusual because I have had several people wanting bottle babies. The past two years I had an abundance of bottle babies because I had several old ewes who had triplets and just could not feed that many lambs. This year I bred mostly young ewes and they've been doing a good job of raising their babies without my help. I did have one twin rejected and I made an executive decision to take one triplet from a first time mother who seemed just a little nervous about having so many mouths to feed. Those two babies stayed here until they were well established on the bottle and then went home with a young woman I met last year at the Kentucky Wool Festival in Falmouth. She's been waiting patiently all this time for some bottle babies to raise. Hannah and her father came last week to pick up the boy and girl and, from the reports I'm getting, it sounds as though she is doing a wonderful job with them.

This afternoon, not only have two more babies left, but their mom went with them. Lindy's daughter, Mirian, decided that she wanted some lambs months ago and after talking it over, we decided that taking an adult ewe and her lambs might work out better than having bottle babies, especially since Mirian wanted to do all of the care and she will be in school for another six weeks or so. The ewe previously known as Tiny (and she's definitely not tiny anymore) is now named Pepper and she got the prize for having the cutest lambs of the year. Though it is difficult for me to sell my lambs at any age, I do feel good about the homes they are going to and I'm pretty sure I have visitation rights!

Basketball anyone?

Remember this poor mom? Well, she's breathing a lot better now that she's off-loaded these two bundles of energy. These are the two basketballs we were all wondering about last week. They were born on Easter Sunday evening, just after all the family left. Guess she was waiting for a little privacy and quiet! They are two big, healthy boys and they are obviously getting plenty of milk from mom because they have energy to spare! They go at full tilt, running, climbing on mom's back, jumping and just generally getting into things. Next thing you know, they look like this. (Notice mom takes the opportunity to take a nap while the kiddies are quiet!)

No Easter bunnies here

We only have Easter lambies around here! These two lambs became the starring attraction at Nana's (that would be me) this year. Forget about that Easter egg hunt! They all just wanted to hold the lambs. Due to some unusual circumstances, I ended up with two bottle babies in the house during Easter weekend and it turned out to be a really fun thing for the grandkids. We always have the whole family here for Easter and have a tradition of taking pictures of each family group seated on a huge rock that marks the family cemetery of former owners of the farm. This year, every family group picture included the lambs! The lambs seemed to love all the attention, but they were some tired babies at the end of the day!

Besides having the whole family here for Easter Sunday, we had a productive weekend in the lambing barn. There were four sets of twins and one set of triplets born. We now have 17 lambs on the ground......8 ewe lambs and 9 ram lambs. There will be a little break in the action now and then we should finish up with the last four ewes lambing next weekend.

Who said basketball season was over?

Kentucky finished their season (and a fine one it was!) last week, but it sorta looks like we still have basketball going on around here.

This girl was snoozing in the shade of the shed, while I was helping clean up the newest set of twins (both boys) born yesterday afternoon. Her turn is coming in the next couple of days and I know it can't be too soon, as far as she is concerned.

I can only imagine how difficult it must be to carry all that around, much less try to sleep comfortably. So, what do you think? Big twins or triplets?