Winter 2021 Lambing has begun!

We're off to an awesome start to our lambing season with 3 ewe lambs born at about 3 am. I was super pleased that both ewes delivered just fine on their own since one of them had to have her lamb pulled last spring and the other is only 9 months old. Lottie, the 2 year old ewe, had a single ewe lamb, solid white and 10 pounds! Emma, the 9 month old ewe lamb, had twin ewes, both solid red and 3 pounds each.

Lottie was an excellent mother last spring and I'm glad to see that hasn't changed! I kept her daughter, Laurel, from last spring and she'll be lambing next April. I'm hoping she's just as good of a mother and I'll definitely be keeping her new little sister. This new ewe lamb is from Brom, our registered Katahdin ram, so she is purebred and could be recorded in the future.

Lottie and her new ewe lamb

Lottie and Laurel, her Spring 2021 ewe lamb

This is obviously Emma's first time lambing and I actually didn't know for sure that she was pregnant until a couple days ago when she all of a sudden developed an udder. I had noticed that she hadn't been marked at all while all the ewes were with the rams for the fall breeding season but was hoping she was just a late bloomer, as we had another ewe lamb that didn't get bred until well after I joined the groups back together. She's a lot younger than I would've liked for her to be lambing for the first time, but she seems to have had no trouble delivering her twins and has taken to motherhood immediately. Her lambs have an unknown father out of 6 crossbred ram lambs that didn't get separated and sold early enough, so they are 75% Katahdin and 25% Painted Desert.

One of Emma's ewe lambs, being held by my brother.

Emma and one of her ewe lambs

All in all, I'm super glad that things have gone so well so far. We still have another 15 ewes that should be due this month or next so we're expecting a whole bunch of lambs! 9 of them I have due dates for (the next due date is Elizabeth, Emma's mother, who is due Dec. 19) and 6 are a mystery. After that we have another 17 ewes due in the spring, so I should be kept plenty busy for the foreseeable future!