[LeahN]

Well its as cold as it gets and I've had a set of twins and a single. The twins are doing great...unfortunately the single ewe lamb was pretty weak at birth and she died yesterday morning. Of course, it was the ewe lamb that I was planning on keeping, unlike the 2 twin ram lambs who will likeyl become someone's dinner anyway! I have 13 more dorset ewes that could be bred to lamb anyday (at least 3 look close now). I bought them last fall and they had been in with a ram. If they weren't bred by that ram, they should be bred by my ram to lamb March 1, with the rest of my Dorset ewes and the Lincoln ewes. I have 27 ewes altogether to lamb this spring.
Glad to see this site is back up and I hope everyone's lambs are healthy
Leah!

 

[LeahN]

True about a single ewe lamb being dinner...the ewe is just a yearling lambing for her first time, so first time around I'll accept single births. Next time hopefully she'll have twins. Definitely I"ll eventually be culling most ewes that routinely throw singles. We took the dead lamb to U. of KY for a necropsy just in case there was something more to the death than simple chilling. I"ll know the results tomorrow, I just hope she wasn't too frozen to determine anything. The necropsy is free, so if I learn just a little, it'll be worth my driving to Lexington (about an hours drive).
We live in a selenium deficient area and I haven't been supplimenting. We didn't a problem when we lambed here back in June, but at least the necropsy can either rule out white muscle disease or I"ll know from now on to suppliment and/or give each new lamb a Bo-Se injection. Actually I sort of wish I cut the lamb open to see for myself if I could see anything wrong, but I'd be afraid I'd ruin something the people at UK need to see.
I hope we have no lambs born tonight or tomorrow...it'll be 10 degrees by morning and I'm not even at home...I'm taking care of 3 farms while owners are out of town and I'm at one of them and the driving conditions are too dangerous to get home.
Leah

 

[LeahN]

The necropsy repost showed that the first lamb died of hypothermia, the second of septicemia (which I'm guessing came from a naval that I didn't notice was infected...it WAS iodine dipped). So lucky no white-muscle disease. I had 2 chilled lambs this morning and we warmed them in warm water , then a hair dryer, and when they were alive looking again and sucking, we fed them colostrum. Doesn't red cell have quite a bit of copper in it? Hehe, I have the 2 lambs now sucking on my socks (they don't agree that 2 oz is enough milk at once!)
Leah