Our 16 ewes have now all lambed so lamb watch is finally over! We have had 24 lambs in total, (17 girls and 7 boys). Everything was going so well until ewe number 13 lambed and showed no interest in her wee boy. After keeping her in the barn for a week with her lamb and holding her to allow the lamb to feed there was still no signs of them bonding so, "Oliver" is now on the bottle 4 times a day. He follows me everywhere even when I feed the alpacas in another field - he is really attached to my black wellies. 14 and 15 lambed no problem and this morning our last, number 16, had twins - a big boy and a tiny girl. The girl is too weak to feed, even from a bottle so we tube fed her colostrum and will feed her until she is strong enough to fed from her mum.
Harris with Oliver
16 with her twins - you can't really tell but the lamb in front is so small, hopefully she will gain her strength to feed for herself.
Although we've been busy with the sheep we have managed to try and start breeding the alpacas. A couple of times I had put our stud (BBKing) in a small paddock with the girls with out much success and then one day when moving some of our early lambers to another field BBking sneaked through an open gate and got amongst the girls and did his thing. Just shows you can lead a horse... Anyway, we will continue to give him opportunities over the coming weeks so hopefully he will have worked his way round the girls otherwise we will start penning him in and playing our "orgling" cd to get them the mood. (Orgle - the noise the male makes while mating -http://www.intrepidalpacas.com/Sounds/orgle.wav)
Hi Iain & Ann, BBking will get the idea for sure - perhaps you should play him his namesake's song, "The thrill has gone" - that will do the trick! Lovely photos by the way. Hope your weather in the West is warmer than ours in the East - fresh dusting of snow on Ben Wyvis last night, more expected tonight. Take care. Shirley & Robbie
ReplyDeleteWow - "Orgling" - bet that's not been a common sound in the Outer Hebrides till now. Really pleased that Mr 4-horn has proved his worth.... JF says do you want him back for good?
ReplyDeleteIf you have any lambs going for sale later on, do give us a shout. Good luck with the bottle feds.