Happenings of Life on The Farm
I have a few maple trees in the fence rows, but we haven’t tapped any in a few years.
Today, however, I was trimming some branches that were hanging low into the field, and the sap was literally spraying out with the chain saw. Jenna cupped her hands and drank a cup full of ‘sweet water’.
Syrup season is definitely flowing.
Our excellent supplier of ewe lambs, Mik-Lin Farms of Sutton, delivered another batch of their finest to us last week! We have been really fortunate to get all our new breeding stock from one source like this. It really cuts down on the different diseases, parasites, etc. that sheep are good at getting!
They have settled in nicely, but we have to somehow rename some of these barns. When asked where the new ones were, I said ‘the pig barn’, which was confusing enough when there was pigs in all of the barns, let alone now that there isn’t! My immediate family all knew I meant the addition to the old bank barn that was the first barn built for pigs, (as opposed to the cover-all, or the ‘new barn’ that were also built for pigs). The in-laws, however, required an explanation; and you can’t really blame them!!
We have also started in on the second batch of sheep lambing, I think we had almost a week in between the last of the first batch and the first of the second batch. We were just getting them sheared in preparation for lambing, but before we were finished, one of the first ones we sheared, had twins. Guess it’s a good thing she went first!
We’ve gotten quite a few multiples born out of the Rideau Arcott breed, but they are supposed to do that. Our Dorset-Sulfolk crossbred ewes’ on the other hand are more likely to have nice big singles or twins. So with most of them having lambed, and, on average, every other one having twins, we’ve been pretty happy with how they have done as well!
Last nite however, when Dad went back to check the barn after supper, he found one of them had triplets! I honestly don’t think I’ve heard of that breed ever having more than twins! And the bonus (on the cuteness factor) is that one of them is black. The mother ewe is blackish, but the little guy is really black!
Not the best picture, but I took it on my phone, and it still show off some of their cuteness!
It’s Friday, one week since the first set of more-than-twins were born, and the multiples keep coming!?
We now have 4 sets of quadruplets, and 4 sets of triplets. And so far we’ve only had one little guy who didn’t make it.
Makes you wonder what was in the water 145 days ago!?
Most mornings, when we are feeding the sheep, they all line up at the feeder to try and get the best feed. This leaves an area completely big-mom free and apparently the little lambs think this makes a great opportunity to run!
Trying to catch them on film has been a bit of a challenge, as they always seem to stop when I pull out the camera, but I finally got a half decent shot of it. (although it’s still better first hand!)
We had our first set of triplets on Friday. They were very small, and it does take the mom quite a bit longer to dry off that many bodies, so they aren’t as quick to all get going as a single or even twins. Luckily, we prepared for that! We have some cow colostrum from Cousin Bob in the freezer, so we heated up some and gave them each a few cc’s in a syringe. They seemed to be coming along fine by the next day.
Now triplets are not that uncommon, but it is certainly not the expected norm either, so it was a bit of a surprise Sunday morning when there were a set of quadruplets! They too, were pretty small, but with a bit of the cows milk to give them a boost to get going, they too are up and going.
Now quadruplets are not unheard of, but they certainly aren’t expect very often, so it was a bit of a surprise Monday morning when there was another set after breakfast! Plus another set of triplets! By supper time, there was a set of twins to join them. So out of 5 mom’s we have 3+4+4+3+2=16 lambs!!
I’m getting very good at getting a little milk into a newborn lamb, and so far, they all look healthy and happy. Now all we have to do is make sure we get enough nutrition into the ewe’s to feed all those little guys!
‘Misty’ came to our farm way back in 2002, and quickly became Grandma’s Dog. (mostly because he wanted nothing to do with men or farm animals!) He was a few years old when we got him, so that puts him into his teens in age.
This fall, he had trouble with walking, and falling over and not being able to get up. In the end we think it was a stroke, and he got worse through the month of January, before finally Just lying down last weekend, and not being able to get up, or stay standing if we got him up. So Sunday night, we put him to sleep, and Monday morning, we dug a hole under the old poplar tree. Lucky for us there was virtually no frost under the snow!
RIP Misty
I have farrowing crates. Pens used by the sows to have their baby pigs, and they are working quite well for the sheep. Since I have quite a few first time mom’s, I’ve been trying to put them into the crate before they give birth, that way neither I nor they lose track of who belongs to who!
Today, the kid’s and their friends, Kita and Alex, stopped in to the barn to see the little lambs on their way home at lunch, and noticed one starting to lamb in the big group pen, not in a crate. As they watched, slowly the first lamb came out, and then the second right behind it! Since I was actually home eating lunch at the time, they managed to get the lambs, and chase the mom, into an empty crate. As well they found the breaker and turned on the row of heat lights for the little guys. They even found some hay and a little water for Mom. I was impressed!
As we worked away in that barn all afternoon, another sheep gave birth out in the pen. So we got her into a crate, as well as a few others that we went looking for who might also be close! But then, just as I was going home for supper, yet another sheep had two of the tiniest little lambs you’ll ever see. She had a very small utter, and wasn’t that round, so she just didn’t look like she was about to give birth.
They too are in a crate, and we got the one to stand up and nurse before bedtime, but the other one is so small, he can’t even stand up. We bottle fed him a little, but he may be just to small to make it. Time will tell…
Lot’s of lambs are a good thing! Considering we just finished shearing them last week, now is a good time for them to start lambing in earnest. So far we’ve only had to help a couple of them, so they are doing well, and little lambs are awful cute, at least once the goopy birth stuff is dried off…
So, if your reading this, you’ll probably notice that things on the page look a little different. My old blog theme had an update, which seemed to mess up several things on me. Rather than fight with it, I switched to this one. I actually like it quite a bit, and am now happy with the whole situation, which is a far cry from how I felt at the start of all this!
I have also used a slightly altered version of the same theme for the Meaty Guys update page. www.meatyguys.ca/whats%20new.html , so it seems pretty versatile too.