When we put our rams in with our ewes during the breeding season, we often try to keep a close eye on them to get an idea of when they were bred. For our ewe Anna, it was easy to tell, as Ibsen was very relentless in his duties. Ahem. We had the date she was bred and knew the most likely date she would lamb. She hit it within a few hours. We had her expected lambing date as Saturday, and at about 3:45 Sunday morning we knew something was going on in the lambing shed. Up until now all our our girls have come into the lambing shed to deliver, but we were having a beautiful night and Anna decided to deliver at the bottom of the paddock in the straw that we had placed down there from a broken bale.
By the time we got out there, the little ram lamb was up and had already found her udder and latched on. Wow, we didn't have much to do but dry him off a bit and put the two of them into the jug. It was a record, we were back in bed by 4:30am!
This little ram lamb is out of Anna x Ibsen. In keeping with our Pride and Prejudice theme, this is Colonel Fitzwilliam. We are calling him Fitz.
Anna is a great mama, he put on 1.4 pounds in his first 24 hours. The only problem is he is only nursing on one side of her udder. We had to use warm compresses before we could get her milk to flow again. We have had to really milk her down. They will stay in the jug until he learns to nurse from both sides.