Lambing Jugs

Back in the Fall I posted a picture of our new mini sheds and talked about them being lambing jugs. We use them much like a maternity ward, giving Mum and baby a chance to get to know each other and to ensure Mum has enough milk and the lamb or lambs are feeding OK before heading off into the world. The pictures above show them in action. We had 9 pens in all and all the ewes went through them, staying for one or two days before joining the flock. It makes for a bit of work but we had no miss mothering or losses so it was well worth the effort.

This guy was our first lamb and much to our horror he had a black patch on his back left foot and we were wondering about the parentage of our ram. All turned out well ,as all the rest were all white with no more black spots

Cuddle with Mum

Quiz time

What the heck is this, answers in the comments box please, in a few days I will post the answer

Help !!

I was out in the corrals the other day and heard a lamb bawling in distress and also a lot off bashing banging sounds. I followed the noise and found a ewe frantically circling the mineral box making enough noise to wake the dead. Upon closer inspection I discovered four little legs in the box, a lamb had crawled in ,stood up and then couldn't find its way out and panicked. the only way out was through the top so I lifted the lid and picked him out reuniting him with a grateful mother.

Miserable

Miserable, that describes the weather and how I feel about it. The 19th April and its snowing, we should have the sheep on pasture by now but it has been such a cold dry spring the grass has managed to turn green but it isn't growing. The sheep too are miserable as they are sick of silage and are itching to get out and eat some grass. Every fence around their pens has no grass within 18 inches of it as they are all on their knees reaching as far as they can under the fence to get any green blade that they can snag.
On the bright side the drop in barometric pressure brought on some more ewes and we had three sets of twins last night. We now only have a handful left to lamb and with a 160% lamb drop I figure it's not bad for a bunch of ewes whose average age is 8 plus years .It never ceases to amaze me why sheep, cattle and goats always birth right ahead of a storm rather than keeping their legs crossed and waiting till it blows over !! Any one with any ideas out there?

Update on river bank

If you can remember back to last Novembers posts (see older posts at bottom of page) we were busy working on the river bank restoration to stop the erosion of the banks and to make water access points for the livestock. We placed rock and trees along the bank to protect it, but could not finish because of heavy snow cover. Well the guys were back the other day as it must be finished before high water at the end of May. The trees all have to be secured with cables to the rock.

The job starts with drilling holes in the rocks so that the cable can be inserted and glued in place with an epoxy cement. The cable is wrapped around the bundles of trees and the cable ends glued into the rocks. Once the epoxy is hardened the cables are tightened by stapling the cable into tree trunks until all the slack is tightened. As you can see in the last photo you need a good sense of balance walking on the trees as a spill guarantees a bath !