Lambing Preparations: Part 2
A toolbox keeps supplies clean and organized.
In anticipation of our first yeaning (birthing season) I purchased some lambing supplies which arrived a few days ago. With an “unimproved” or heritage breed such as the Navajo-Churro, lambing should be easy with no assistance required from the shepherds. A good ewe will give birth on her own and clean and claim her lambs immediately, making sure that they find the udder and learn to nurse within their first hour of life.
That said, it is always a good idea to be prepared for unexpected birthing difficulties, weak lambs, or a first-time mom that rejects her lambs. It is also a good time of year to stock up on vaccination supplies, which will be needed at shearing time (for the adult sheep), plus two weeks and again four weeks after the lambs are born.
Standard Lambing Supplies
- Nutritional gel supplement
- Digital scale & sling (for weighing newborn lambs)
- Heat lamp, bulb, & thermostatic plug (for lambs born on cold days)
- Notebook & pencil (for tracking birth weight, color, sire/dam, ear tag numbers, and potential names)
- Ear tags & applicator (both farm ID tags and official USDA tags)
- Ring expander & O Rings (for docking tails)
- Sharp scissors (for cutting umbilical cords)
- 7% Iodine solution (for sterilizing umbilical cords)
- Latex gloves
- Old bath towels
- Molasses (nutritional supplement for ewes)
- High-sided water bucket (tall to prevent lambs from climbing or falling in)
Emergency Lambing Supplies
- Digital thermometer
- Antiseptic lubricant (for easing stuck lambs)
- Shoulder-length gloves (for obstetric work)
- Powdered colostrum (instant first-milk for newborn lambs)
- Large syringe & rubber stomach tube (for force-feeding weak or cold lambs)
- Powdered sheep’s milk formula, bottle, & rubber teat (for rejected lambs)
- Prolapse harness & retainer (for treating uterine prolapse)
- Rectal ring (for treating anal prolapse)
Vaccination Supplies
- Chalk (for marking lambs after vaccination)
- Dewormer
- CD/T vaccine serum
- Rabies vaccine serum
- Disposable syringes and needles
In addition to the supplies listed here, there is one more item that should be purchased or built. A lambing “jug” is a small, private pen that you put the ewe and newborn lambs into. This gives the mom a chance to bond with her lambs, and gives the lambs easy access to her udder in the critical hours after birth. For large farms, it may be easiest to purchase jug panels from a supplier, however for a small farm such as ours, this is expensive and unnecessary. My next post will show you how to build your own lambing jugs.
Lambing Preparations: Part 1
Caution: Wide Load!
(shepherd shown for scale)
Lambing has been on my mind a lot lately as we prepare for the next phase of our shepherding adventure. Keeping adolescent and adult sheep has, thus far, been easy and fun. Even locating, selecting, and bringing in a breeding ram has been a relatively straightforward experience. We anticipate that raising our own lambs from birth will also be a lot of fun, and of course challenging and exhausting. So we’ve been doing our best to get ready. Although the ewes aren’t due until the end of March, there are details to attend to now.
Diet
We’ve been feeding a high-quality hay during the fall and early winter, and will continue this through the remainder of the ewe’s pregnancies. It’s important to provide enough calories and nutrition without letting the ewes get too fat, as tubby sheep tend to be more susceptible to stuck lambs.
Shearing
I’ve just called our shearer to set up an appointment. Spring is the busiest time for shearing, so it’s important to make arrangements early. Shearing two or three weeks before the ewes are due is important for several reasons. First, it allows us to be able to get a clear view of the sheep’s body, to determine whether they are, in fact, pregnant. Sheep are interesting in that they keep their fetus(es) small until just before birth. Combine this tendency with a winter coat, and it can be difficult to tell who is pregnant, and who is just fuzzy.
Second, shearing before birth keeps the fleece cleaner, and at the same time, provides a clear view of the action during labor and birth. Ewes are also more likely to choose a sheltered location to give birth if they are without their thick sweater. Lastly, shearing provides the added benefit of ease for…
Vaccinations
It’s easiest to administer subcutaneous injections when the sheep are freshly shorn and already restrained during shearing. In the Spring, we administer a CD/T (clostridium types C & D and tetanus) vaccine to all adult sheep. This acts as a booster shot and also ensures some protection for newborn lambs who will get the antibodies from their mother’s milk, before receiving the standard course of inoculations.
There are more details to address before the lambs arrive, so stay tuned for information on supplies and the construction of lambing pens.
Wham, bam, thank you ram!
Blaze strikes a pose for his registration photo.
“Blaze” is a two year old Navajo-Churro ram that we purchased from Orion Rising Farm in South Royalton, VT. When we were first looking for eligible bachelors for our ewes, he caught our eye with his beautiful and well-balanced rack. After the sheep were shorn in October, we were able to get our hands into the fleece, which contains soft, lofty wool and the correct proportion of wool undercoat and hair topcoat.
After he was shorn we could also see that Blaze had a nice solid shape and good body conformation. He was a perfect gentlemen with our flock, and has an easy temperament when being handled. This is an important trait, as offspring will often inherit the disposition traits of their parents. Nasty sheep don’t get to stick around; they matriculate to the freezer.
I wanted to pay tribute to this beautiful ram, who today went to his new home at a small farm in New Hampshire. Though it’s difficult to tell for certain without resorting to expensive ultrasound testing, the ewes are looking bred and healthy. I can’t wait to see what the lambs will look like.
2009: A Year In Farming
Movie
It’s been far too long since our last post. In the intervening year we’ve gotten our little farming business off the ground. In the spring we fenced a second pasture to give the sheep more room to graze. We sent our first batch of wool to Green Mountain Spinnery in August, and sold yarn at the Tunbridge World’s Fair and the Vermont Sheep & Wool Festival. Our yarn is available for sale via the shop, and in the next few weeks we should also have some washed and carded fleeces available for hand-spinners. If you are interested in grease fleece or roving please contact us for colors and prices.
The big news is that we’ve bred the ewes and are expecting our first crop of lambs in late March. We’ll be posting pictures of all the lambs as they are born, and accepting deposits for breeding stock in April and May. We may also have locker lambs for sale. Please contact us with any questions about our products, sheep for sale, or for more information about raising Navajo-Churros.
Winter Wonders
In October, I closed the last journal entry by wondering how we—and the animals—would do once winter set in. Our summer and autumn experiences were great, but once there was snow on the ground, how were we all going to adapt our routines?
I’m pleased to report that the state of the flock is excellent! Winter has certainly posed its fair share of challenges, but so far we are weathering them. Below are a few observations on our experiences:
We have had snow on the ground since about the middle of November. As most visitors to this site know, we love snow; however, snow poses a number of challenges for us. We must keep the paddock gate area clear so we can enter and exit, and a path open from the paddock gate to the hay cabin, where we also store the grains we feed the animals.
Most of these things we anticipated before the snow fell. What we didn’t know was whether the llamas would beat their own path from the barn to their community loo, or whether the animals would have any difficulty getting to the water bucket around the back of the barn. What we found was that in heavier snow storms both the sheep and the llamas preferred to stay in the barn. Now, some readers might think that’s a “duh” moment, but we also noticed that the llamas like to be outside while it is snowing … on them. The llamas would beat a path to the potty site, but in a significant snow storm we found it useful to shovel a short path for them so they wouldn’t go in the barn.
Speaking of such things, the sheep—unlike the llamas—aren’t as courteous, and go wherever they happen to be. This meant that in order to keep the barn clean we need to be able to get the wheelbarrow to the barn and then to some other destination. While it was warmer, we started our first manure … err… compost pile in a spot we believed convenient for us and a safe distance from the creek. Maneuvering a wheelbarrow full of pre-compost through the snow created new challenges, but we identified a spot just across from the hay cabin (where we store the wheelbarrow under the lean-to shed) on the other side of the driveway, which should easily get us through the winter.
Another thing we learned is that the sheep will take hay from the feeder in the barn, but that they prefer to “graze” outside. We also learned that the added benefit to this is that if we feed them outside they don’t soil the barn as much. We mind the weather, but if it is sunny we always put at least some of the hay outside the barn.
Easy enough, right? Well, we learned two new things and realized that we couldn’t just throw the hay in the front of the barn every time. For one, see above where I speak of the sheep and their lack of civility. But we also had to be cognizant of where the snow on the roof would shed. Snow accumulates on the metal roof, and can come down without notice, much like an avalanche. The snow shed travels further than one might think, and we watched from the house as snow fell from the back roof and nearly trapped Caramel, who was using a path we had cleared. We couldn’t tell if she was hurt or not, but as I started toward the barn Sarah saw the lamb push her way out of the snow and jump to a clearing. The sheep was fine, and now we know where we can and can’t dig paths or put hay.
Even if it isn’t snowing, the low temperatures here pose challenges for the humans and animals. After a brief Christmas thaw, we have had a very cold January. Over the last few weeks we have seen overnight temperatures dip to -30°F (-34°C) and about zero (-17C) during the day. When it gets that cold the animals—and especially ruminants—need a little help to keep their energy up. On the advice of Marian White, we gave the sheep a mixture of grain and whole or crushed corn kernels. For us, the cold temperatures mean we have to bundle up to do our daily barn chores, and it takes some effort to work chains and latches when one is wearing gloves.
One of the things were are glad we learned of before winter set in is the heated water bucket. This thing is awesome. The water bucket we have has a thermostat built in and keeps the animal’s water from freezing. When we built the barn, we had an insulated wooden box built around the water pressure tank that helps brings our water from the well we dug this summer. The box has thick blueboard foam walls on the inside and a 100-watt light ball attached to a thermostat to help keep the space warm. We thought that the insulated box coupled with the heated bucket would work for us. When the pipe that brings the water from the well head across the drive way to the barn was installed it was buried a good distance. However, the day before we were to leave for South Carolina for the holidays the water didn’t flow when we turned the faucet on. Luckily there was plenty of clean snow for our farm sitter to throw in the heated bucket, but it was equally fortunate that the temperatures reached the high 40s (~8C) while we were gone. Now we let the water trickle at all times to keep it from freezing up on us again (see video at right or on Flickr), which makes for some interesting ice sculptures.
Otherwise, most everything is good. We still have a good supply of hay, and all the animals are healthy and growing lovely winter sweaters, which we plan to shear off in March.