2009 Lamb Journal 2008 Lamb Journal Photo gallery of this years lambs!  Click here.   April 24th After all of the commotion from the first three deliveries, Mona, a Margret granddaughter, finally settled down and lambed later that evening.  Two very flashy badgerface lambs, a ram and a ewe.  It was a very long day.  One ewe left to lamb for the season. April 24th Margret is our oldest ewe and and very experienced mother.  We may have to retire her soon, maybe after next year so there won't be many more Margret babies.  We sure have loved her daughter Josephine and all of the nice ewe she's given us.  We'll just have to hope for a ewe lamb next year from her. April 24th Margret and Monika both went into labor. Monika was already in lambing pen, but Margret prefers to lamb outside, so I let her. Really, (with me running back and forth) at the same time, Margret and Monika had a lamb. Margret, a solid moorit (brown) ram lamb and Monika, a spotted moorit badgerface ewe lamb. I went out and picked up Margret's lamb and brought it back to a stall, certain she would have another. While another ewe, Mora, Margret's granddaughter followed, so I penned them both up thinking Mora was probably next. Monika had a another, a spotted moorit ram lamb. Margret nothing. Bad girl.  April 24th Lambapalooza!  The first of the day to lamb was Perla. We were away in the morning and by the time we got home, she had a nice sized white ram lamb followed by a nice black badgerface ram.  Both seem to have Perla's stout, stocky build and nice confirmation.  Perla no more than finished and Monika and Margret both went into labor.   April 20th I had been watching Bjork  for the last three days.  She has a very large udder that just kept getting larger and I though, she has to come soon.  After showing signs all day that she may come in she decided to settle down that evening and have her lambs outside right in front of the sheep shed.  She almost couldn't have made it more convenient for me.  She had the fisrt lamb, a black frosted mouflon and then the second, black badgerface ewe.  I sure that I would get my desired, spotted, co-expressed lambs  from her, but she and Heracles had other plans.  Each threw their sold gene and their pattern gene and neither threw spotting.  The result of course was two pattern lambs (one of each) and no spots.  You just never really know what to expect from these sheep. April 20th after dropping off Bella at the vet to be spayed, I returned home to find Rosa in labor.  She is a lovely ewe and was a little small at breeding time so I bred her to Valur who tends to throw a little smaller head on him lambs.  Rosa had a perfect delivery of a beautiful black ewe lamb.  She seems to have a lot of milk and her lamb is growing very well.  She's a great, attentive new mom who just loves her baby. April 20th I went out to check the sheep around 5:00 am and to feed a bottle lamb.  It was still quite dark, but I walked around and checked everyone I thought would be coming in soon and all seemed fine.  Our livestock guard dog, Bella, was going to the vet to be spayed that morning so I did another check around 7:00 am before we left and that is when I discovered Snoja with a large dead lamb head sticking out of her.  He obviously was coming head first and I missed them at the 5:00 am check.  I was really looking forward to her lambs with Dakota this year so it was difficult to deliver a very nice dead ram lamb from her.  I no more than got the first lamb out of the way and out came a much smaller ram lamb that was just waiting until the passage was clear.  He was quite vigorous and I put them in a pen together and ran off to the vet with Bella.  Momma and baby are doing fine. April 19th After doing morning sheep checks and chores I saw that Freyja was going to lamb soon.  Freyja likes to have her lambs outside, but enticed her into the barn with a little hay.  It wasn't too long before she gave birth to the first of what was to be perfect moorit grey triplets.  The second came in about 10 minutes and the last about 10 minutes after that.  Perfect deliveries and perfectly uniform. These lambs are by Valur.   April 17th Dinner and a show!  I had been watching Thora all day, certain she would lamb by evening chores.  We had dinner guests that later and I really wanted to be done with everything so I could get cleaned up and prepare dinner.  No so lucky.  Thora decided to give birth just as we were sitting down to dinner and I had to keep running out to the barn to check on her, But by desert she had a lovely set of twins by Dakota.  A beautiful black ewe with some fancy white flashes and a co-expressed black badger/mouflon ram lamb.   April 16th Josephine started going into labor in the morning.  I was fortunate to be there.  The first lamb was white and born with out intervention.  Josephine usually has flawless births so I was surprised when the second lamb was coming and All I saw was a tail.  I knew I had to go in.  I found one leg, but not the other and went ahead and delivered  another ewe lamb breach. I stuck a little straw up her nose to get her to sneeze out the mucus.  When I felt all was well I went back into the house.  Josephine is a large ewe, but I remember thinking thinking that there could be a third in there. I was still surprised that she still seemed big to have two small ewe lambs.  I went out later to check on her and discovered that hse had had a stillborn ram lamb.  I should have checked when I was in there.  Always trust your fisrt instinct.     April 15, Afternoon checks and Anna was in labor.  She delivered twins, a spotted grey moorit mouflon pattered ewe lamb and a solid black ram lamb with some white flashes.  Lovely lambs!  I was quite surprised to see the white legs and nose coming out as Anna isn't known to carry spotting.  There must be a hidden spotting gene on her sire Mokollur or dam Freyja's side, at least I now know that Anna carries spotting. Anna is a first-time mom and doing a great job.  She is very calm and has good mothering instincts. April 14, I took a little trip out to the barn about an hour after Astrid had her lambs to check on them and discovered Mona, a first-time yearling ewe, in labor with head and legs out. I quickly made a lambing jug and Mona delivered a beautiful frosted black mouflon pattered ram lamb with some fancy white flashes. This is Dakota's first lamb here and if this is any indication to the quality of his lambs, there will be some outstanding lambs yet to come. April 14 Well, it was an exciting and sleepless night. Astrid was having that, now, familiar look about her so I penned her up around 8:30 pm and went back to the house for dinner. By 11:00 pm there were two very large ram lambs, a frosted moorit mouflon pattered and solid black. I wasn't certain that Astrid carried moorit and was very happy to see the moorit mouflon. The Black lamb weighed 12 pounds and the moorit 11 1/2 pounds. Nice vigorous health lambs by Heracles   April 10th Valur and Maria - I did a lamb check at 1:00 am and found Maria with twin black lambs (ram and a ewe) newly born, all cleaned off and nursed.  It's just what you want to see from a first-time.  I wasn't expecting twins from Maria as she wasn't very big, what a nice surprise.  Mom and lambs are doing well. April 8th  Opha and Valur  First-time moms can be a real challenge. After waiting several ours for Opha to deliver on her own, I decided to go in. She hadn't been trying to push for hours and seemed to have just given up. I found two perfectly positioned lambs, pulled one out and then the other. Both are ram lambs, one solid black and the other solid moorit (must be a ram year).  Opha is cleaned them off and all are healthy and fine. Problems with first-time mom deliveries are not unusual and they can really try your patience at times. We have been very fortunate thus far, but with eight new moms this year I knew that I wouldn't get through lambing unscathed.  April 7th   Another lamb! Whew! This one was difficult. I went out around 1:30 to do my sheep checks and found a yearling ewe, Eva in labor. Hard labor! I saw a head, no feet so I went in. I found one leg and managed to get it into position and with Eva's help, delivered a curly, little, co-expressed, black grey/badgerface ram lamb by Heracles.  I stuck some straw up his noise to get him to sneeze out the mucous and wiped off his face. Eva started to push again and delivered a dead, mummified, black grey ram lamb. Eve had slipped on the ice several weeks ago and injured her hind leg. I'm guessing that the lamb died around that time as well. Sad for the loss, but happy for the healthy lamb.  I was really hoping for a co-expressed black grey badgerface ram lamb with this cross. The plus side is that he will have all of her milk and mature very fast. April 5th 2010 Tina gave birth to a large white ram lamb by Valur this morning around 9:30 am, all went well.  Tina is a yearling first-time mom and doing an excellent job of attending to her lamb.  Both mom and lamb are doing well and you just can't ask for more than that.  It's a beautiful, warm, sunny morning, and perfect lambing weather.  What a nice way to start the season!