Stories from the Farm

I have been waiting for Dolly to lamb to do this post…waiting and waiting!

  The rest of my girls spoiled me by lambing within 18 days and I guess Dolly wanted to stay true to herself and be ‘special’.  She is actually my son’s ewe and the most anticipated lambing of the year for him and he was really hoping that she would have a boy for him…

well she lambed last night and gave him a very cute boy

and a beautiful girl!

He has been very attentive to Dolly for the last couple of days and even more so today.  Dolly deserves the best food, the cleanest pen, and the freshest water 🙂

Dolly was wise to wait and not lamb in the middle of the chaos – we had 23 lambs in 4 days!!!  With her lambs, we have a total of 48. 

Here are the stats –

172% lambing rate

58% girls/42% boys

Average weight for the lambs – 7.5 lbs.

Here are some of the traits that I was breeding for and am happy with in this year’s lamb crop…

Pretty, consistent fleeces

Coloring – The ideal Jacob should have 40% black/lilac and 60% white.

Spotting pattern – big bold spots.  (I love the spot under her tail)

Structure

and mothering ability.  I hope this lamb is as good as her mom, Bronwen.  All of my first time moms were EXCELLENT!  I have retained several daughters from lines that have particularly good moms and it is amazing how similar the mothering styles are.

A little surprise is all of the blue eyes we have this year.  None of our rams have blue eyes and just a handful of our ewes have marbled eyes – blue and brown swirled.

The first born lambs are already getting big! 

Paisley is still the cutest lamb 🙂

and this is my favorite picture!