2014 lambing season has begun

Lucy, a Scottish Blackface sheep, with her twin ewe lambs.

The 2014 lambing season started this week at Brambleberry Farms. We started the breeding later in the fall last year and we're very glad that we did with it being such a long, cold winter. Some years we have had lambs as early as Feb. 1.
Even though it's mid-March, the weather is still cold and we've had some lambs that have not survived. We bring the lambs in the house to get their body temperature up, but some are too weak to make it. Lucy is one of our top mothers and we're confident that she will take care of her lambs. Nevertheless, we do check them every few hours to make sure that their mouths are warm -- a sign that they have adequate body temperature. When a lamb's body temperature falls, you must warm them up before they can eat. Sometimes we need to hand-milk the ewe and bottle feed or tube-feed the lambs just to make sure they have enough nourishment.
With plenty more lambs on the way, we're waiting for Mother Nature to catch up with the calendar and give us some mild spring weather.