Lambing in the soggy spring of 2016

Well we have been lambing for about two weeks and are about half done.  The first days after shearing was windy and dry.  The dust blew and turned the sheep a dreary black color.  The one day the wind blew over  60 MPH.  We were in dire need of some moisture.

Then the weather warmed up and got into the 70's and 80's.  Lambing was looking easy.  Warm days and warm nights.  Marshall was night lambing and had a pretty nice time.  Then it started raining.  We got 0.65" one night and the wind came up, so Marshall had to stay up all night.  Then it got cold and snowed.

This is the scene by the troughs that we grain in.  Sloppy mud with snow on the hill where the sheep are eating hay.  You have to watch the ewes real close and bring lambs to the barn before they get chilled.  By the time it was done snowing and raining for several days we had all totaled 1.75" moisture.  The sun finally came out and dried things out and it got over 80 degrees the one day.  Now today it is raining and snowing again today,  Supposed to be cold and rainy and snowy all week.

The one nice day after I fed the ewes their grain the lambs started playing and running up and around the manure pile.  People ask about the black lambs.  These lambs are Ramboullet and somehow we get a black one every once in a while.

All the family that has an interest in the sheep went together and bought a bum lamb feeder.  It costs a lot of money but we don't have to feed bums.  You hook it up to a water source and fill the hopper with 25 lbs. of powdered milk and plug it in.  It heats the water, adds the milk powder and mixes the two together.  The end product goes through tubes to nipples and the lambs suck milk anytime they want.

Brooke is helping a bum lamb get started sucking.  It could feed three pens at once.  We have one pen of 15 lambs and a second pen with about 6 lambs in.

The grand kids came over last Sunday and helped clean jockey pens and number lambs.

Here I am numbering and Ryan is holding the lamb and two kids are running after numbers and one is watching.  Notice the bright light behind me.  It is a high pressure sodium yard light that burns all the time.  I mounted it in the jockey pen part of the barn.  It really lights things up.

Then in our spare time we drive out in the pasture with the side by side and check for baby calves.  Here is our first born from the cows over here.