Sunday, October 5, 2008

More Sheep Stories

Little Timmy has gone to stay with a local orphan lamb raiser and Victoria has indicated that she would like to swap him for one of her older lambs. Timmy's dad is a beautiful purebred Cheviot with a gentle nature. Victoria said her Suffolk ram was quite dangerous and has attacked her a few times, so she needed a new one. She's a tiny little thing who could easily be knocked over by a rambunctious boy with murder in his heart.

I am relieved to have him cared for as we don't have shedding and yards built for orphans. Next year we have determined that we will, as I would be pleased to raise a group of cheery little lambies. The grandkids would love the bottle feeding.

Timmy is doing very well, apparently.

Our poor mumma sheep was flyblown the next day after her huge drama. Thankfully she was to be confined for observation all week, so I noticed horrid blowflies buzzing around her rear end. We cleaned her up and clipped off her yucky spots, and she was fine. One stitch came out after two days and the other last night. Sheep have such a powerful flock mentality, she patrolled up and down the driveway fence, moaning and then panicking if they moved out of sight.

All is restored now and she is content.

We ringed four little tails and decided to leave the one boy with his undercarriage until we saw our sheep farmer friend who can do him. His tiny testicles kept retreating up into his body every time we tried to isolate them, and they're so tiny, just pea sized.

While we had the flock yarded last night I noticed our last ewe looked a bit 'mucousy' at the back end, indicating that her lambing was imminent. Sure enough, two hours later, she had one on the ground, so we are now finished for the year. Six live and two not. Not a good average, but the ones we have are healthy happy little things.

2 comments:

Pants said...

Hi Blissie

Glad it's all over for you and you can relax for a while.

xxx

Pants

Robyn Rinehart Art said...

You'd better believe it Pants. I enjoy the aftermath watching them grow up, but not the difficulties. Each year we do get a little smarter. Our last little baby is very tiny and was shivering a bit in the cold this morning, so, much to her mum's horror, I towelled her off. Sunshine would be good now.

:0)