Come on Luna!

Well, things are winding down in the Crosswinds maternity ward. I have one ewe left to go - Luna. She is actually due the 30th, but she has been staying away from the rest of the flock today and her sides are looking a little sunken in - a good indication that she is getting close. She has not lambed before, so It would be nice if she delivered before Saturday because I will be at market all day, and I hate to leave a first time mom alone.

 Luna is closely related to Laurel (the ewe that gave me the flashy ram lambs) and they were bred to the same ram, so I am hoping for more wild spots.

BUT, to get you caught up, if you didn't see her picture on Face Book......why aren't you on Face Book? I digress...

The newest addition to the flock arrived on Wednesday. Ashumet (Ash) had a single ewe lamb. This little girl has amazing fleece. I think that makes 5 (?) black ewe lambs...I think...I have lost count...and sleep...and contrary to popular belief, counting sheep does NOT make you go to sleep..it just makes you overtired and a little crazy(er).

I need to get a close-up of this little girl's face. She looks like ET. Sometimes when lambs have tight, crimpy fleece, like this, on their body, the fleece on the cheeks and poll looks so exaggerated in contrast. So cute!

So, now you are caught up, but you really should be on Face Book.

Until Luna decides to provide more cuteness for us to ogle, I will  just leave you with some random lambie pictures. Most of the lambs will be for sale, pending evaluations. First placements of lambs will be for people on my waiting list that have been waiting for lambs with specific traits or genetics....but, I have a lot of lambs....a lot.

Daisy's ram lamb.

Laurel's Black flecket ram (below) will be going to live with my good friend Kelly at OK Acres.

Holly's boy.

One of Lovey's rammies, looking very excited about having his picture taken. This guy is built like a brick house. Solid, wide and square. He has really nice fleece so far too.

 Laurel's moorit flecket rammy. He is a half-poll.

Lilly and one of her boys.

I love the tiny 'moon spot' that Mira's girl has on her forehead.

Edrea's ewe lamb.

Halley's gulmoget ram may stay here at least for breeding this fall...it depends on whether or not he has full horns-his sire is a half-poll.

 Lilly's ram lambs. Right now their fleece is vastly different, I am not sure what the black lamb's fleece will look like ultimately, it is very soft, but very straight...sometimes the 'dog hair' like he has is just birth coat and there is nice crimpy fleece underneath....let's hope! The moorit guy's fleece is just lovely and he looks to be a half-poll.

Daisy's boy again.....not everyone else cooperated for photos.

Hopefully somebody that likes grey will eventually make Willow's ram lamb their new flock sire...this guy's fleece is like buttah. But-tah. Full horns. We'll see how he looks in a few weeks.

 Buttah. Just sayin'.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that we will have a brand new lambie or two on the blog tomorrow....we shall see what Luna has in store!

The boys are winning.

We have been really busy the past few days. Besides the craziness of the Holiday weekend, we added to the fun by making a few additions to the family. First, on Friday, Menemsha gave us a spotted ewe lamb. A very large spotted ewe lamb. She wasn't even two full days old yet in these pictures.

Then, on Sunday, when we were getting ready for Easter dinner, Halley decided to go into labor. I missed dinner, but I got to see these two nice lambs come into the world. A solid moorit ewe lamb.

And a gorgeous moorit gulmoget ram lamb. I think this guy is going to be stunning!

 This morning, Holly started acting like she was in the early stages of labor-sort of. I was in and out of the barn checking on her, and on one of my checks she was standing at the hay feeder, with her water bag exposed, eating and not giving the slightest indication that she had any intention of pushing anything out of anywhere. I gave her a lot of time since she was a first-time mom...a lot of time....I waited, and waited, and waited, she did nothing. After hours had passed and there was no progress, the rest of the story involved a full length glove, a call to the vet, a hoisting of an uncooperative ewe into my truck...by myself, a trip to the vet (vets generally don't like to make farm calls for sheep), a lot of  pulling and a very large ram lamb with some very large horn buds, that, apparently, Holly didn't really want to squeeze out of 'there'.

Both mama and this nice, fawn katmoget ram lamb are doing well. I generally don't like taking pictures of lambs while they are still wet...it's not their best look, but I wanted to show you  these big ol' horn buds...can't say that I blame Holly for not wanting to push this guy out.

So, now the official count is 11 ram lambs, 8 ewe lambs.

And, of course, I had to do this. How angry can a lamb look?

Also, I would like to thank those of you who have suggested names for the lambs, I usually stick with a theme though so that down the road if a lamb's name comes up I know exactly what year they were born and who the sire was...I just haven't picked my theme yet...I have a couple in mind, I'm just a bad decisionationater.

The last hold-outs.

It has been almost a week since the last lambs were born, so while there is a lull in the action, I thought I would show you which girls still have yet to lamb.

Crosswinds Halley. Halley looks to have twins in there. She is bred to Firth of Fifth Avyt. The lambs will be brown based.

 Hopefully, I will get at least one gulmoget, but we shall see. Avyt is spotted and Halley may carry spots.

My black-based gulmoget, Crosswinds Ashumet. Ash is also bred to Avyt and she carries spots.

Crosswinds Natale Holly, my fawn katmoget, is bred to a spotted ram. I don't know yet if Holly carries spots.

Crosswinds Menemsha. Pretty mioget girl, also bred to a spotted ram. Menemsha carries spots.

Luna (Crosswinds Lunar Eclipse) is bred to Firth of Fifth Avyt. I am hoping for some babies with wild spotting, wonderful fleece and conformation like Luna....a girl can dream, can't she? She was the only ewe that I could catch a picture of while she wasn't eating. Luna should be the very last ewe to lamb...I know that because the morning that the rent-a-ram was going home I witnessed a romantic interlude between them. For some reason, she looks exceedingly long in this photo...not sure why.

I wanted to show a few more pictures of Lovey's boys. I didn't really notice how nice they were until I was out taking pictures today. Sometimes the flashy, spotted lambs catch all the attention and the solid lambs get overlooked.

Both of these boys have nice fleece and great conformation, and carry spots. Their sire is a half-poll, so I am not yet sure of their horn genetics.

This guy is really dark brown.

 And square.

 Lighter moorit rammy also has nice square conformation, although I couldn't get a good picture of him standing.

              As I said, sometimes it's easy to get distracted by my spotty.........................................................

.....Ohhh, look! Shiny! A Spotted lamb...awwwwww!

Now, what was I saying?

Ramma lamba ding dong.

So, it appears that we are having a break in the action. We haven't had any new additions since Thursday when Lilly finally lightened her load, so to speak.

You remember Lilly, don't you?

Thursday afternoon Lilly started showing signs that she was in the beginning stages of labor. Aside from her physical signs, she was 'nesting' feverishly in the barn, digging up a storm and acting very uncomfortable. I moved her into a lambing pen so that I could keep a close eye one her; I had a feeling that there was a lot going on in that big 'ol belly.

Lilly technically belongs to my sister Marie. Marie used to live in town and bought Lilly a few years ago to keep here, at my farm, and let her become part of my flock. When Lilly started showing some early signs of labor on Thursday, I let Marie know so that she could stop on her way home from work and, hopefully, be here for the delivery.

We sat in the barn and watched the endless cycle of getting up, lying down, dig, dig, dig, lying down, getting up and then finally started to see some action. Lilly started pushing, and pushing, and pushing but very little progress was being made - not even the water bag. I stared intently at the...ummm...'focal point'..trying not to let Marie see my concern....it hadn't been terribly long, but something should have come by now.  Finally a few more pushes and there was something..."OH POO!"...well, that is not exactly what I said. It was a bum ( for those of you not in the habit of watching livestock being born, you generally want to see two front feet and a nose coming out first-in a diver's position....not a bum). It was exposed enough that I knew it was a smallish bum and Lilly would be able to get it out without too much trouble....easy for me to say, but it is best not to intervene unless absolutely necessary. So a couple more mighty pushes and a little black ewe lamb was born, I quickly uncovered her face, gave her some brisk towel rubs and she was breathing and calling to mom in no time. Just when things has settled down, Marie very excitedly pointed to Lilly's 'nether regions' and exclaimed, "there's something, there's another, iiiit's....look!" If you've met Marie you can fully appreciate what this was like for me, and I suddenly remembered why I didn't call her last year when Lilly was in labor. If you haven't met Marie, then you have to understand that she is the type of person that, while helping me vaccinate lambs, she closes her eyes, as she holds them still for me, repeating, "I'm sorry, baby, I'm sorry, little lamb", the whole time. Luckily, what she saw was ram lamb, in the proper position, coming quickly and easily into the world......followed just as quickly by another ram lamb. The first set of triplets we have ever had born here. Yeah, Lilly! What a champ! And Marie did pretty well too.

This is the little trouble maker ewe lamb....I still don't have names...for anybody.

Moorit ram lamb with amazing fleece ( he doesn't have eight legs, that is his sister behind him).

  Handsome Black ram lamb.

"I'm new to all this, but I'm pretty sure this is NOT my mama!"

Cassie's ewe lamb was so happy to have new friends that she had to dance.

"That was fun!"

By the way, the official count is: 15 lambs, 6 ewes NINE rams. Ramma lamba ding dong. Five ewes left to go.