Our fall lambing season is well underway and I think the transition to only fall lambing will be successful. We have decided to stop lambing in the spring and focus only on fall lambing. With spring lambing we end up marketing the lambs when sale prices are poorest; also carrying some of the lambs through the hot summer months is not very productive.
We also are trying some new lambing management practices, which so far seem to be working well. As the ewes give birth, that day or the next, the ewes with the new lambs are separated from the rest of the flock and brought into a flock with only moms and lambs. We provide this flock with supplemental feed (14% protein soybean hull mix) and rapidly the lambs learn to eat this feed as well, along with the moms. This will facilitate the weaning transition and focus our feed on the moms and lambs. The pregnant moms are provided molasses protein supplement tubs to help them along.
Here we have the group of moms and lambs housed in the southeast blueberry field. There are 75 ewes with 107 lambs, not all of the lambs are visible here in holding pen 3 where we feed them. A separate feeding area adjacent to their main field is needed because this many moms get very pushy when one is trying to pour out the feed so that it becomes an impossible task. Here, I can get the feed poured out and open a gate to let the moms and lambs in.
This group is closed, no more sheep to be added to it. There was a natural lull in the lambing and the next group of moms and lambs are being put into the southwest blueberry field. Separating them into similarly aged groups helps with the feeding and eventual weaning. We can wean the lambs of a similar age and send the moms off to a hay lot to dry off their udders.
This is a view of Zeus, the alleyway going downhill to the barn complex and blueberry fields, and the middle field on the left. Each morning I open a gate to let the ewes go across the alleyway to the front field to the right of the picture where fresh grazing is available. The ewes go through in a rather orderly process (since I'm not giving them grain/feed it is not a stampede). The ewes with new lambs hang back and become separated from the rest of the flock. These ewes with lambs are the few white specks visible in the picture.
With the pregnant ewes in the front field, the ewes with lambs gradually work their way toward the flock and end up in the alleyway where they are directed down the alleyway toward the blueberry fields, holding pens and barns.
Moms and lambs are gradually encouraged to move along the alleyway toward the barn complex area. They nibble on grass and weeds along the way.
During the process of moving them and during their initial feeding near the arch barn, I determine for our records the tag number of each ewe, the number of lambs (single, twin, or triplet) and of course we have the date each ewe lambed.
