Sunday, April 26

Sunday Second Dose of Cute: An Important Message from the BABS (Baby Alert Broadcast System)


Lamb #19 Is Safely on the Ground! (and less than an hour old here)

Current Lamb Count: 19. Number of ewe lambs: An unbelievable 15. Number of hours before I need to go back down to the barn: Not many. Number of hours ago I probably should have been asleep: At least 2.

© Copyright 2009 FarmgirlFare.com, the baby booming foodie farm blog where your imagination isn't playing tricks on you—those really are little horns poking out of that Katahdin mama's head. They actually used to be a lot bigger, but she managed to somehow break both of them off within a few weeks of each other. The vet has told me that, just like fingernails on people, her horns will keep growing back, but after being broken off they won't necessarily grow back in the right direction—they may even curve around and grow into her head. It's too early to tell for sure, but from the looks of things, so far so good up!

13 comments:

  1. Susan - These lambs are so amazingly precious. I am curious though - will you keep them all? Just what is the plan for all of them? (I'm not knowledgeable about the different species of sheep, so I need a little help here!) I just know that when I look at these sweethearts, I fall madly in love!!!

    thanks for the help and the pictures.

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  2. Oh what a little darling! Congrats on the baby boom over there. :)

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  3. I'm sure you will appreciate the fact that this weekend, while wrestling with a 200+ pound ram for shearing, I implored my husband to consider getting hair sheep. Shearing is for the birds, man.

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  4. CUTE BABY..YES THE HORNS DO GROW BACK..WE HAVE A LITTLE PYGMY GOAT, ONE DAY THE HORSE GOT TIRED OF THE GOAT BUNTING HIM AND UP AND GAVE HIM A KICK! THE VET CAME AND TOOK CARE OF THE HORN, IT WAS HANGING DOWN, HE PIT SOMEKIND OF POWDER IN THE HOLE, STUFFED A CLOTH IN IT. PRETTY SOON IT GREW BACK, PERFECTLY IN PLACE!

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  5. Thank you for posting all these great pictures of the sheep; my family really enjoys them! Are ewe lambs more valuable than ram lambs? Seems like they might be, but what do I know? (Nothing, I'm a city girl.)

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  6. is carey having babies this year?

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  7. So, here i am in San Diego, and what's my morning routine? Coffee and logging on to your site to see how the "count" is shaping up for the day. I'm a city girl but maybe a country girl at heart ... Love your blog! Susan in SD

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  8. The katahdin sheep are really changing the look of your herd - our buck goat was a freebie and came disbudded - bad job was done on it and in addition to infections as a baby he now has these funky little bits of horn which are broken off periodically when he forgets himself and hassles one of the bigger does!
    Such pretty babies - I think I've said that a lot this spring!

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  9. If I ask very nicely, will you please mail me a lamb - just a loaner, a la Netflix (Sheepflix?)? I promise to drop it back in the mail in a few days? Those little ones are simply too precious!

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  10. AWWWW..... Your photos are really awesome!!

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  11. Every day I turn to your blog to cheer me up. I was having a dull, dreary day today and was feeling down. I was so pleased to see all this cuteness! The pictures of your farm and your darling little critters always makes me feel happier!

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  12. Precious baby love!! I want to give that baby lamb a hug! So cute...what a lovely life you have.

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  13. Hi Everybody,Thanks for taking the time to write. It's so nice to hear how much you're enjoying these daily doses of cute.

    Hi Barb,Since we've actually been trying to reduce our flock size (at one point a couple years ago we had over 100 sheep!), we won't keep all of these lambs. The four boys (out of 19 lambs!) will stay on the farm until they are butcher weight (preferably about 130 pounds, which will take over a year because they're grass fed and gain slowly vs. cramming them full of grain - which they would probably prefer, LOL), and since we have so few this year, we may end up raising some of the girls up for butchering, too. We prefer the boys, though, since they are generally bigger.

    I don't sell a lot of starter flocks or 'replacement' ewes (where somebody already has sheep but wants a few more ewes) because sheep aren't all that popular around here (this is cattle country, with goats in second place, though the goat herds aren't as prevalent as they were a few years ago), but I may be able to find some people interested in this Suffolk/Katahdin mix since the Katahdin half should be bringing some real parasite resistance to the animals (stomach 'barber pole' worms are a huge problem in Missouri due to the ideal warm and wet conditions of spring and summer).

    That said, it's very easy to fall madly in love with each and every adorable little face - which is how I ended up with over 100 sheep, LOL.

    Hi Kristin,Yeah, I thought it was so ironic when I learned that my sheep shearer had started raising hair sheep that didn't need to be sheared. : )

    Hi Amy,You asked if ewe lambs are more valuable than ram lambs - the answer is sometimes. As I mentioned above, if you're selling starter flocks or replacement ewes directly to another farmer, you can generally ask a higher price for them than you would get for 'market lamb' boys sold at the livestock auction barn and eventually destined for the dinner table.

    A lot of people just sell all their lambs at the sale barn when they are young (anywhere from 50 to 70 pounds) and because they sell by the pound, if the girls are smaller they will bring less money. And 'breeding stock' young ewe lambs often don't go for much at auction.

    Of course it all depends on what you're selling, where you're located, what kind of sale it is, who is at the sale, etc. : )

    Hi LindaSue,Yeah, it's amazing how different these half Katahdin lambs look - especially the ones that are snowy white!

    As for horns on sheep, I've only had a few and I really prefer them to be hornless. There are some wool sheep that have huge horns, and besides having to worry about them getting knocked off, etc., you have to worry about being impaled by one! ; )

    Hi Lisa,LOLOLOL, I love the idea of Sheepflix!

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December 2015 update: Hi! For some reason I can't figure out, Blogger hasn't been letting me leave comments on my own blog (!) for the last several months, so I've been unable to respond to your comments and questions. My apologies for any inconvenience! You're always welcome to email me: farmgirlfare AT gmail DOT com.

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