It's the season of love on sheep farms across the hemisphere. Just a few weeks ago, we brought our largest ram, Dodge, from the bachelor pad around the corner to be with the ladies. He will spend the next month or so with the 2013 ewes who already had babies last spring. If all goes well, they will all be bred and with the help of a marking crayon, we'll even know due dates. So far, all the ewes seem to have been bred in under two weeks. We've changed the color of the crayon so we'll know if any of them go into estrus a second time. If none go into estrus again, that means they were all likely bred and will be having babies within a week of each other. That's 14 deliveries in one week - we certainly will be busy.
The younger female lambs were just joined by one of the young ram lambs. We chose number nine, now dubbed Nino, because of his East Friesian appearance and the fact that his mother was a great milker. So far many have been "marked" by his purple crayon but not all. He'll be switched to green in another week or so and hopefully all will be bred.
No comments:
Post a Comment