My babies are leaving home

As of early this afternoon, we are officially finished with 2010 lambing season. Fiona, a CVM ewe that I bred when she was not quite a year old (not something I usually do) gave birth to a beautiful ewe lamb. Just look at those markings! This little girl has stolen my heart already!

I'm very pleased with how things have gone this year. No big catastrophes (always a good thing) and, once again, an over 200% lamb crop. We have had 25 lambs out of 12 ewes (three sets of triplets, 2 singles and the rest twins). The boy/girl count is 12 ram lambs and 13 ewe lambs.

Hannah and her father, Tom

I don't often let my lambs go until they are several months old (with the exception of Graham Lamb, who went off to Sara's to achieve stardom and fame!). This year has been unusual because I have had several people wanting bottle babies. The past two years I had an abundance of bottle babies because I had several old ewes who had triplets and just could not feed that many lambs. This year I bred mostly young ewes and they've been doing a good job of raising their babies without my help. I did have one twin rejected and I made an executive decision to take one triplet from a first time mother who seemed just a little nervous about having so many mouths to feed. Those two babies stayed here until they were well established on the bottle and then went home with a young woman I met last year at the Kentucky Wool Festival in Falmouth. She's been waiting patiently all this time for some bottle babies to raise. Hannah and her father came last week to pick up the boy and girl and, from the reports I'm getting, it sounds as though she is doing a wonderful job with them.

This afternoon, not only have two more babies left, but their mom went with them. Lindy's daughter, Mirian, decided that she wanted some lambs months ago and after talking it over, we decided that taking an adult ewe and her lambs might work out better than having bottle babies, especially since Mirian wanted to do all of the care and she will be in school for another six weeks or so. The ewe previously known as Tiny (and she's definitely not tiny anymore) is now named Pepper and she got the prize for having the cutest lambs of the year. Though it is difficult for me to sell my lambs at any age, I do feel good about the homes they are going to and I'm pretty sure I have visitation rights!