Aggieterpkatie- The Daily Bleating-LOTS of pics 4/17

aggieterpkatie

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Yeah, he's a pretty nice boy. Still no breeding going on. I'm hoping they just haven't gone into heat yet. They were in with my two ram lambs until a couple weeks ago, and I'm really hoping they're not already bred. :rolleyes: I think I would have noticed breeding going on. I did see the rams act interested, but never saw any ewes act remotely interested. I'll try to be patient...he's only been here since Sunday afternoon. :p
 

aggieterpkatie

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Bean (a ewe) was bred, and June and Ida (does) were bred. :D
 

aggieterpkatie

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Bean, the ewe, was re-bred Sunday, which is consistent with a heat cycle. Hopefully she settled this time. Darla and Barley were bred Sunday night/Monday morning. :D Hopefully they all settled and will all lamb right around the same time!
 

aggieterpkatie

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I'm still around, but just not very often! Lambing is over for the year. It was my worst one ever. Not sure what went wrong, but all the luck was against me this year. My management didn't change at all... I bred three ewes. Darla, my Southdown ewe, and her two 2-year old daughters, Bean and Barley. Barley lambed first, with twin ram lambs, both natural colored. That same night, Bean aborted twin ram lambs. :( One looked malformed, so I'm thinking that maybe caused her to abort? That has never happened to me before, so I was really heartbroken. Then Darla lambed with a single ewe lamb. I was really frustrated it was a single, but she's such a gorgeous little ewe! She's definitely staying here.

At a week old, I noticed one twin ram lamb of Barleys was hunched and looking pretty pitiful, so I bottle fed him thinking he wasn't getting enough to eat. His temp was fine. The next day, he looked even worse,and he was practically hypothermic. I brought him in and warmed him up, tubed him w/ fluids, gave antibiotics and vitamin b. I worked on him all day and lost him that night. His breathing had gotten pretty rattly, so I'm thinking it was pneumonia. His brother seemed fine, and was gaining weight. I went out to feed a few days later and he was dead in the pen. :( No idea what happened with him. I've only ever lost 1 lamb out of allll the lambings I've had, and this year I had 2 aborted and lost 2 after birth. UGH. I had a few moments of wanting to sell every animal on my place, but I'm feeling better now.

I figure I'm due for a bad year, since I've never really had any troubles. I sure hope it turns around for next year though!

But since I have only an acre, and I'm limited on number of animals, I've decided to sell Bean and Barley. I really like them (especially Barley!), but now that I have a second purebred Southdown ewe, I'll be sticking solely to purebred Southdowns. It just makes more sense.

So if anyone is interested in 2 2-year old Romney/Southdown (natural colored) ewes, let me know! I'd really love for them to go together.

Here are some pics:
Darla's purebred Southdown ewe lamb:
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One of Barley's twins (died):
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Barley's udder pre-lambing:
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Darla's udder pre-lambing (got even bigger):
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I did have a better kidding season though. One doe had twin doe kids, and one had a single buck kid. The buck is already in his new home, being bottle fed. The doe kids are doing great, and cute as a button. :D
 

SheepGirl

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Your ewes have really pretty udders! I wish my ewe's udders looked that lol

And sorry about all the babies you lost :( That's odd that you lost the one ram that was seemingly healthy. That's gotta stink.

I hope things turn around for you next year!

:hugs
 

aggieterpkatie

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It was nice and sunny yesterday so I took a few pictures. :)


The sky was so pretty yesterday evening.
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I put up the electric net fence since it's starting to warm up and the pasture will be growing again. I need to lime and fertilize it soon...hopefully this weekend. I also need to scrape the area under the hay feeder since there's a build up of waste hay unde there.
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My ram, smelling Rooster Cogburn. The ram needs a name, now that I've decided to keep him (I was just going to borrow him for breeding, but I decided to buy him).
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Barley (L) and Bean. I really hate to sell Barley, so now I'm wondering if I should keep her and just sell Bean.
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Barley again. Even though she's not purebred, I just really like her build. She's tall and long and just a nice ewe.
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Baby Girl's tail fell off yesterday! She needs a name too.
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