Monday, July 23, 2012

Feeling like Spring around here

Take away the heat, the browning pastures and it feels a little like spring with little bunnies running around and a new lamb.
I know it's not good to handle little rabbits, birds..etc, but this little bunny really was in danger.   The rabbit was hopping across the sheep pasture when our pyr Rosco took note and took off for it.   I called for him to stop (as I have thought before that he was killing baby rabbits earlier in the year when I caught him in a nest of squeaking babies)  So, Wyatt and I decided it would be best to take the bunny to the other side of the fence and we (ok, I) was hoping his mother would find him there.   I'm not sure if a rabbit of this size is still totally dependent on its mother, but we didn't want to move him far from where we caught him.  Long story short, Wyatt had decided it was "my bunny".   The bunny hung around for the better part of the day and then, was gone.   I've heard every day since "my bunny gone", and just yesterday we came home to find 2 large rabbits where we left the baby bunny, so now -"my bunny gone with his mom" and a happy ending it is.    

Roxy (from the last post) had her lamb 2 weeks ago.  Unfortunately, it appears she needed assistance as the lamb didn't make it.   I had been trying to keep a close eye on her, but when I went out to check on her (2:30am with a flashlight) she had just had the lamb.  I feel bad that I wasn't there to help her, but very thankful that she is ok.

Hiccup (one of our meat breed crosses) had her little lamb last Thursday.  

Cute as a speckled lamb!

Friday, July 6, 2012

Still.... still waiting on lambs

Seriously?     I have to research this, we've never had Icelandic lambs this late in the year.   I don't know if it's possible that their milk could be coming in without them being bred?   I have heard of it happening with goats, but this is a first for us.    Roxy here is one of two Icelandics that have been milking up.   I checked a few days ago to be certain that there's milk, and there is.. and I noticed as much as a month ago that her milk was coming in.   Maybe they're waiting for warmer weather to have those babies?  (100+degree record breaking weather right now)

Girlie here (below) is the other ewe that appears to have been bred.

Meanwhile, here's some of the other lambs that are nearing weaning.    This is Deloris' ram lamb:


And his sister:
 What a sweet little face

This lil guy is Murphy, and he's from our moorit ewe Sierra.   This is her first lamb and he has such a beautiful fleece of brown/gray and black.

This is one of DiDi's ram lambs.   He is one of a set of twin ram lambs.



Delilah's gray/black ewe lamb

(Deloris in the foreground) but one of our 3 gray moorit rams from this year in the background:

And the lovely Mr B.

Just a few of the 2012 lamb crop.   The heat is brutal here, but fortunately they seem to be handling it well.  Our pastures are terribly dry, but if we can make it to Sunday - hopefully we will get some much needed rain iand cooler temps!