Chris and Sherry Hardie

B&B homesteaders

Opening up a bed and breakfast was the realization of a dream for us. Our long-term goal is to be self-sufficient (we're well on our way) and to be able to share the earth's bounties with our guests.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

A trio to start the lambing season

Mary and her three triplet lambs. 
Lambing season 2013 has started at Brambleberry.
 Mary, one of our original ewes, had a set of triplets on Feb. 13.
We had intended to wait longer this year before having lambs due, but like other years an amorous and determined ram decided last fall that fences were no obstacle for him getting his job done.
He apparently did it well in the one day that he escaped because we've also had twins and a single birth in the past four days, with several more looking ready to birth as well.
Saturday morning our Valentine weekend guests were lucky enough to witness a live birth.
So far all of the lambs have been boys, which is OK, since these are all crossbred lambs and not animals that we would keep for breeding stock. We would prefer  that our purebred sheep will have ewes.
The weather has been cold, with overnight lows close to zero, but the lambs so far are doing fine. We hand-strip some mother's milk and tube-feed our lambs just to make sure they get some colostrum which is essential to their survival.
Of course it also means that we're not getting much sleep, but that's part and parcel with lambing season.

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