Last month I wrote about the frustrations around getting equipment and supplies. Fortunately, most stuff that relates to our lambing is now here and being used. It is with a ‘weird’ mixture of apprehension and satisfaction to see how lambing is progressing - it’s a different set-up than before and our numbers are much higher than previous lambing experiences here so the potential for the ‘planned and un-planned’ to go wrong is certainly present. On the whole, things have gone well, I think. We will certainly assess as a group what went well and what didn’t. Our additional challenge is knowing our numbers will continue to increase and we will need to factor that growth into our future operations.
I think that (except for maybe one) every ewe has delivered for this round – the rest (a much smaller group) are due in the fall. We have kept all of them either in the main closed in barn if they have lambed or a large pen in the other barn while waiting to deliver. Now it’s time to start the process of getting them ‘out on pasture’. They can’t handle an immediate transition to 100% grass so they only go out for a short while which increases every day. Also, we have young lambs that have never been outside so the transition for them is huge!
Hopefully all will go well, and when I write next month al I will have to say is that ‘all went well’!