After a long hiatus, I'm back to show you what is happening at Hill Grove Farm. Last year, the ewes and the shepherdess had a break and we didn't have any lambs, although I brought home 3 new sheep from R3 Ranch: Zambia and her twin ewe lambs, Summer with her ram lamb and Dexter, the sire of Summer and Zambia's lambs. Labour Day weekend arrived and I brought home this handsome fellow, Bailey (aka Emporer Cuzco Lorenzo Bailey III). Thanks to all those who contributed to his more formal name when they heard I was getting a llama!!! Bailey is a 6 year old Guardian Llama who needed a new flock after my friend Shirley decided to retire from her Polwarth flock after over 20 years of shepherding.
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| Bailey |
Bailey and I have been getting to know each other a bit better since the Winter has finally decided to at least disappear, although we have yet to have really warm days. I've experienced a few llama firsts both good and not so good, but its all in the learning: llama hugs (when I come home and say hello at the fenceline and he puts his head on my shoulder as I wrap my arms around his neck), llama spits (when I was too slow to give him his pellet treat), raspberries (when I thought he was going to spit, but its his way of investigating a new food/taste/excitement), shoves (when he gets excited and pushes past me while I'm pushing the wheelbarrow through the narrow snow path), kisses (as he uses his ridiculous lips to nuzzle you hair and neck), screams (as he noticed my friend's husky dog and thought it was a predator and he decided to round up all the sheep by running a circle around them, resulting in the sheep instinctively running into the barn in a tight herd formation, to the most recent and feared llama kick (when he got strangely spooked while running past me as some hay I was carrying tickled his back legs and he decided to do a little jump and dance resulting in me getting a somewhat gentle kick of his back legs)...good thing he knows I'm the hand that feeds.
Grey Cup weekend (November 24th) was the day I put Dexter the ram in with only 7 girls for this year's lamb crop. Based on previous documentation, my sheep have an average 147 day gestation, so their due date was April 19th (Saturday of the Easter weekend). I set myself a Google Calendar note for that day, but I've been watching them carefully since the last week.
Still no lambs on Good Friday morning. I happened to look at my phone and the Google Calendar reminder popped up around 7:00pm to remind me that my first lambs were due tomorrow. My children are responsible for evening chores, so I don't usually go, but the reminder had me thinking that I should check. When I arrived, Caramel had just given birth to a little lamb and was being helped with the clean up of the lamb by Peaches (a girl I didn't breed this year). I left them to do their job while I prepared the lambing pen. As I was working I finally heard the little lamb cry out...good sound! But then, I heard 2 different cries!! I went to where Caramel was and there was a 2nd lamb. Many girls were surrounding them, but only Peaches and Caramel were very busy licking and trying to clean/dry up the lambs. Once the lambing pen was ready, I grabbed both lambs in a towel, did a quick gender check (2 ewe lambs....hurray!!!), and held them at sheep nose height right in front of Caramel, backing myself slowly towards and into the lambing pen. She got confused and would run back to where they had been born (and the other sheep were crowding around the excitement) and I'd go back to put the lambs in front of her to get her back. The little lamb cries helped as well, because she knew to follow that sound as well. The sun had just set and it was starting to get colder. It had been raining up until about an hour earlier, so that was making the air very damp and with the lambs being still very wet, I had to help her out by drying them with towels. Not very successful. I decided that I had to shut everyone inside to prevent any drafts (it was a bit challenging getting Bailey to go inside, but I tricked him with his favourite pellet food) and managed to shut them all in to keep the warmth. I also put little lamb sweaters on them (wool sweater sleeves with leg holes cut out) to help them keep warm overnight. Poor Peaches was crying for the first part of the night because she thought those were her lambs and that I had taken them away from her.
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| Caramel with her twin ewe lambs |
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| Phoebe and Chloe |
In the morning I was very happy to see that everyone was doing well. Both lambs have their father's dominant pattern Katmoget, but the lamb in the front is brown (Phoebe) and the lamb in the back is black (Chloe). Phoebe is smaller and seems less active, so I will be watching her closely, but Caramel is an awesome mother and both lambs have been nursing regularly and all looks good. No other lambs born overnight, but I have at least 2 girls that are looking very close and both of them are expected to potentially have twins, so it will be a busy Easter weekend. 11 lambs are expected in total (4 that could have twins and 3 that will have singles since they will be first time moms).
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