Thursday, March 24, 2011

Thursday Dose of Cute: A Look Back at Lambing Season 2010 Part Two

I carry my camera with me everywhere around the farm and snap thousands of photos each year, most of which never make it up on these pages. Back in early January I shared a two part, random assortment of personal favorites still sitting in my 2010 monthly 'to post' files:

Part three was supposed to immediately follow, but then puppy madness struck, and I forgot all about it. Since we're gearing up for Lambing Season 2011 to start in a day or two, I figured it's now or never for this cute look back. This is the second half of the lamb photos; you'll find the first half here. And there are links to photos from all of our lambing seasons—plus The Daily Donkey!—at the end of this post. Enjoy!



















Lambing Season 2010 began in March—a few weeks earlier than originally planned—when Ava, one of the two pregnant Katahdin ewes we had recently purchased on a whim from our sheep shearer, gave birth to a sweet set of twins. (You can read more about how and why we added Katahdin hair sheep to our flock a few years ago here.)

By the time lambing season was over in April, 17 ewes had given birth to 30 lambs. There were 11 sets of twins, 5 singles, and one set of triplets. We didn't lose any lambs or mothers, which is rare—and wonderful.

We did, however, end up with a massive case of sore mouth, a nasty, extremely contagious, basically untreatable virus (think blistering sores covering the lambs' noses and mouths), which I had never even heard of before the breakout began. We figure Ava and Audrey, the two Katahdins we'd just bought, were carriers, because their lambs came down with it first. And despite our quarantine efforts, every lamb eventually caught it. Then some of them spread it to their mamas while nursing. Yuck.

Everyone survived just fine, bouncing back cuter than ever. The lambs who had sore mouth are supposedly now immune to the virus, but we still may suffer another outbreak this year. I sure hope not.

Can't get enough of lambing season? Try these:

The Daily Donkey 47: Colorful Backsides

© FarmgirlFare.com, on the way to Babyland and trying to (so far unsuccessfully) save up on sleep for the crazy—but cute!—weeks ahead.
Posted by Farmgirl Susan at 7:33 PM
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3 comments:

  1. Good luck with the lambing season. I hope it all goes well and expect to see lots of pictures of teeny lambs.

    Have you heard of this programme that we have in the UK? http://www.lambinglive.com x

    ReplyDelete

  2. Golly, never heard of it.

    WOW, that's a lot of lambs.

    ReplyDelete

  3. The pictures are just darling. I wish you the best during the lambing season, and hope to see pics of the babies. Just hope you don't have to contend to the outbreak again this year. Keeping finger's crossed for you.

    ReplyDelete

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