2009 JAGER FARM LAMB REPORT!

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May 23, 9:30 a.m.  Bear is finally digging in the bedding.  It takes her a while as the ewe lamb is big, but we have our final AI lamb for the year.  A beautiful white ewe lamb from Bifur.  Each lambing season I swear that I will cut the VAI season shorter the next fall so lambing won't drag out so long.  And each VAI season, it is so hard to give up on just one more try!  But this little gal is why I hang in there with the AI breeding; she's a beauty. 

May15, 10:00 p.m.  Leg Spot decides to go early, it is only day 139.  I was worried that the lambs would be underdone, but they are 7 lbs each, so not so!

May 15, 2009, still struggling with predators.  We have never had a year like this, a coyote and the fox.  I've put the families inside of electric mesh which has always been safe for us in the past.  I've had to rethink who stays and who gets sold, due to the loss of some promising lambs.  

May 10, 2009, Finally!  Magda has had her lambs, two ewes!

May 9, Shearing day and we are surprised by 162T going a little early with a set of twins from Heracles.  Magda meanwhile is holding out, even though she is at 145 days.  Maybe later today?

May 8, Heracles, our big Badger boy from Frelsi Farm, is continuing to give us beautiful lambs.  160T had lovely twins this morning, all fed and washed off, just the way we like them!

May 7, mixed news on the farm.  The dreadful news is that we have had a failure of our electric fence and a hungry coyote looking to feed her pups.  In less about 36 hours we lost five lambs.  Wink, 142T, lost one of her Alfur sons, Molly, 239U, lost her ram lamb, 217U lost her ewe lamb, and poor Topaz, lost both of her lambs.  We have brought the fence back up to full power, all dogs are on duty and our rifle is at the ready.   We are holding our breath!  The more cheerful news is that Athena, 145K who is one of our oldest ewes, just had lovely twins this morning.

May 3, 2009, Whew!  What a day; it rained lambs today.  Miss Bianca started with twins, jostling for space in the "lambing spot" with Shannon, who also twinned.  Got them settled and found 932S and Demetra both showing birth goop.  932S had twins, and Demetra a single.  So 7 lambs born yesterday, only one of the was white, and all of them were ewe lambs.  I call that a good day!!

(Very behind on my photos, but there is a jam-up with our photo program.  Hope to solve it soon.  =:-O   )

May 1, 2009, Yearling 236U had a picture perfect lambing.  Nice ewe lamb, Mom was careful to keep her out of the way, tended her very carefully, and even gave up on her morning grain to stay close with her baby.  Love this girl!

April 30, Another good day.  Yearling 230U has had a very nicely built ram lamb.  I had thought at first he was white, but looking a little more closely, I think he is a spotted black, either gray or solid, with color just showing around his eyes and a bit on his ears.  Looking at Mom, I think she is a spotted white, as she is VERY white.  I will breed her to a spotted again next year, and see what happens.  Then Topaz had her lambs with our big badger, and gave us twins (yes!), a moorit gray ewe and a black gray ram. 

April 29, These are the recycles coming through, and thankfully we are getting twins!  Love the AI babies, but hate the singles.  Beauty gave us twins last night, and this evening during supper, 966S has big sassy twins. 

April 28, Our treasured Beauty lambed today!  Or tonight rather.  Late night bed check and Beauty was washing off twin ewes.  !!!

April 27, We start the day with an easy yearling birth with 214U.  A really good mother.

April 26,  A beautiful Eldur son born to Clio, SRX-955T.  He's a looker!  Still really depressed over our ewe loss last night.

April 25, Yearling 248U does a picture perfect job and gives us a lovely horned white ewe lamb.  Then, terrible sadness, we lose Beth, BLW-613N in lambing.  She has a huge, horned single AI ram lamb, the worst possible thing, and he is larger than her birth canal.  It ends badly with a dead lamb and a dead ewe.  Hate this part of being a shepherd, as she was an old friend.  :-(

April 24, first lamb check and Clover is in labor.  Another VAI single, and a big one, but a beautiful, flashy spotted Mori ram lamb - wow!  Great start to the day.  ;-)  Then yearling 217U does a great job around 9:30 a.m., and 129T gives us a Mokollur ewe lamb around 4:00 p.m.  Another busy day.

April 23, Early morning check, no lambs, no one digging in the bedding.  Go in for coffee, breakfast and a bit of email, just over an hour later and a ewe lamb has had her lamb, washed and fed her - love this breed!  8:00 p.m.  doing a lamb check, and we find 919S with one lamb born and another on the way.  Beautiful Grani rams!

April 22, the early morning lamb check finds that Wink has had lovely Alfur twins, two white rams.  1:00 p.m. and Bess has a lovely ram lamb with Goli.  I think (??) he is a gray mouflon, but I will need to look at him again.  Then 3:00 and Penny has an enormous moorit gray ewe lamb, and then 941S has a cute set of twins.  Busy day!!

April 21, whew!  Busy day already.  I've been watching Tia for three days now, so was relieved to see at early chores that she was showing some birth fluids.  Then noticed the badger yearling 215U pushing, and another yearling, 205U digging in the bedding.  Gray rainy day, and babies are popping like popcorn! 

April 20, very early a.m.  I'm woken up by Rufus' extensive barking.  Out to see what's up and he was alerting me to a new lamb.   Very little fellow, about four pounds, born to a yearling.  With some warm milk in his belly, and a snug bed of hay in the lambing jug, he's doing great.  Two ewes and maybe a yearling, on deck for later today.  6:30 p.m., 722P has her twins, white ewe, moorit ram.  No drama, just nice lambs!

April 18th, 6:00 a.m. lamb-check, and our Hnokki daughter just had an awesome Orvar son.  We hit the color jackpot, as both parents are white carrying solid and moorit, and he is a moorit.  The chance of that outcome is probably 1 out of 8 at the best, and probably 1 out of 16.  Yay!  If we are going to get an AI single, we're still really lucky with this one!  

April 17th, 4:00 p.m., Our Kunningi daughter daughter has just had her Bifur twins.  She needed some sorting out, as two heads and two legs were trying to present at the birth canal!  After figuring out whose legs went with which head, the birth went fast.  She's a good mother and loves her twins. 

April 15th, 6:00 a.m. -  our first lamb to the yearling flock this morning.  Our Lykill/Little Red daughter, 200U, has the cutest little spotted black ewe lamb.  She is a very good mother, and it occurs to me as I'm writing this, that she certainly deserves a name!  I will have to ponder her name this morning during chores.  She is doing a great job.  Very careful, keeping her lamb close, washing, pushing her to the udder, even followed me in the first try to the jug.  Not a freak the way some yearlings can be!  She knocked me right down on my fanny when I was trying to dip the navel.  Pretty funny!    Then at 11:00 a.m., another yearling ewe lambed with a moorit ram lamb.  All is well!

April 14 - finally, more lambs!  124T, who still needs a name, gave us a beautiful black mouflon ewe lamb with Goli.  She'll be horned, and I haven't had a horned mouflon since Fiona, MANY years ago, so it may be hard to put her on the lamblist.  We don't choose our replacements by pattern alone, but this one will be really tempting.  Then our beloved Silky, just had twins with Mori, boy/girl.  Great morning!   11:00 a.m.  Our Dalur daughter from Susan Briggs, SRX-58M, just had lovely twin rams with Ormur.  The first is a spotted black, and was followed by a white.  Always thrilling to get a colored lamb out of two white parents.  One of these boys will have to stay for the breeding flock, as I love Dalur and Ormur, so I'm hoping that they grow out as well as the cross would promise.  

April 9th,  Go Little Red!  Bred to Mokollur, she gives us our first look at his lambs with a solid moorit, polled ewe lamb.  The VAI singles can be hard to take, but if you're going to get a single, then a moorit ewe is a great one to get.

April 7th, Our Lamb Queen was born tonight!  Millie, (642N) gave us a big, beautiful, spotted black gray, horned ewe lamb, sired by Goli.  She's a beauty!  We'll post a photo tomorrow when it gets light.  Great start to the lambing season!

  April 6, 2009, Waiting for lambs!  Lots of big bellies, and the udders are filling.  Spring shots are done and the lambing jugs are ready.  With purple crocuses in the garden, and the wild ducks returning, spring is in the air and we can't wait for lambs!  Its not too late to make a preseason deposit on a 2009 lamb.  $100 gets you a spot on the waiting list, and it is completely refundable if you don't find a lamb that fits your breeding plan.  Go to VAI & Farm breeding to get the most recent information on the waiting list. 

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EWE	BREEDING RAM	DATE OF BIRTH	LAMBS & PHOTOS	NOTES AND COMMENTS
BLW-911S Bear	Bifur	5/23/09	A lovely white ewe lamb.	These VAI singles out of big adult ewes are really a sting this year, but even so, this ewe lamb is lovely.
BLW-150T Leg Spot	BLW-240U	5/15/09	Twins!  White ram with very big horn buds, followed by a white ewe.	No problem lambing, despite the big horn buds.  Surprising from 240U, but Leg Spots' sire had big horns.
BLW-343L	BLW-234U	5/10/09	Nice twins, but Magda's lambs are always lovely.  Twin ewes, one white and blabk.	Some more line-breeding to Solee.
BLW-162T	FFC-363P	5/09/09	Nice spotted moorit twins, moorit ram moorit badger ewe lamb.	Some linebreeding to AI sire Flekkur, which is a very good thing.
BLW-160T	FFC-363P	5/08/09	White ram and a badgerface ewe.  Really nice!	The lambs from Heracles seem particularly beautiful this year.
BLW-145K Athena	BLW-234U	5/07/09	Nice twins, a white ram and a moorit ewe.  Mild line breeding to Solee, 38Z.  The lambs are Solee grandbabes on their maternal side and great, great grandbabies on their paternal side.	The ewe will stay to join the flock since her mother is 9 this spring.
SRX-70M Demetra	BLW-234U	5/03/09	Big, beautiful moorit ewe lamb.	Proof that 234U carries moorit.
BLW-932S	FFC-363P	5/03/09	Twin ewes, one completely black, one black with a white star on her forehead.	five 363P daughters in one day!
BLW-100K Shannon	FFC-363P	5/03/09	Twins, white ewe and black ram.	363P is on a roll.
BLW-608N Miss Bianca	FFC-363P	5/03/09	Twin ewes, spotted black and spotted black badger.	Chances of two spotted color ewe lambs out of this cross are 1/64!
BLW-236U	BLW-201U	5/01/09	Black gray ewe lamb	A perfect yearling mother!
BLW-768P Topaz	FFC-363P	4/30/09	Moorit gray ewe lamb, black gray ram lamb.	Both parents make really nice babies.
BLW-230U	BLW-240U	4/30/09	Ram lamb, looks to be a spotted black, but he is about 95% spot!	Nice build, good long topline like both his parents.
BLW-966S	BLW-228U	4/29/09	White ewe lamb, black ram lamb.	Big, big!
BLW-832R Beauty	BLW-201U	4/28/09	Nice twin ewe lambs, first a white then a spotted moorit.	Always happy with Beauty's lambs, but particularly pleased with these.  ;-)
BLW-214U	BLW-240U	4/27/09	Black gray ewe lamb	Mom is feeling fierce about her baby - look out!  But she's doing a really good job.
SRX-955T Clio	Eldur	4/26/09	White polled ram lamb	Lovely boy!  Big boned, and Mom is doing a great job.
BLW-248U	BLW-201U	4/25/09	Lovely white horned ewe lamb	248U is calm and easy and is doing a great job.
BLW-129T	Mokollur	4/24/09	Very flashy gray ewe lamb.  Can't tell if she is moorit or black while she's wet.  (Later) She's either a soft black, or a very deep and dark moorit.  ???
BLW-217U	BLW-240U	4/24/09	Sassy white ewe lamb.	Mom is doing a great job.  Good size, great mothering, easy lambing.
BLW-116T Clover	Mori	4/24/09	Wow!  A flashy spotted black ram lamb.
BLW-919S	Grani	4/23/09	White ram lambs, one with two large black spots on his ankles.	Lambies are carrying color from Dad, who is described as one of the best colored AI sires to come to the station.
BLW-237U	BLW-240U	4/23/09	White ewe lamb.
BLW-941S	BLW-228U	4/22/09	Twin black mouflon ewe lambs!	These are her first lambs and they are lovely.  Both must carry moorit.
BLW-908S Penny	Mokollur	4/22/09	Big beautiful moorit gray ewe lamb.	Born one leg back, Penny still did fine.  She's a looker!
BLW-118K Bessie	Goli	4/22/09	He's a gray mouflon!	Big horn buds on a big ram lamb, but Bessie lambed him just fine.   Check out his flashy gray pattern.
BLW-142T Wink	Alfur	4/22/09	Lovely white ram lambs, perfectly matched for size.	These are our first Alfur lambs, so it's exciting to get twin rams!  One to keep and one to sell.
BLW-215U	BLW-240U	4/21/09	Twins!  Spotted black badger ram, and a moorit gray/badger ewe.	The twins are small, but she's mothering them very nicely.  Both up and nursing in just minutes.  Love this breed!  We hit the jackpot for the color and pattern lottery.  A spotted badger ram and a moorit gray badger ewe.  And both could have been solid black.    ;-)
BLW-205U	BLW-228U	4/21/09	Very nice white ewe lamb.	Lambed like a pro!
FFC-436R Tia	Goli	4/21/09	AI twins!  Black/gray ewe first, then followed by a black mouflon ram lamb.	I had been guessing that Tia carried a recessive gene for pattern, and have given her chances to express, which she has not.  White, white or white in previous lambing season.  But she came through and threw her solid gene, and gave us two colored lambs!
BLW-722P Poppy	BLW-201U	4/20/09	White ewe lamb, moorit ram.	Big horn buds on this guy!  Mom is an old hand, so no concerns here.
BLW-213U	BLW-228U	04/20/09	White ram lamb.	Pretty little, and born on a cold night.  Mom loves him though.  We tubed him last night to be sure he got a good start, and this morning he's up and perky.
BLW-137T	Orvar	04/18/09	Moorit ram lamb, a complete tank!  311W.	Wow!  This guy is stocky, stocky, stocky!  With Orvar and Mom being white, we hit the jackpot with this boy coming moorit.
BLW-922S	Bifur	04/17/09	Twins!  Boy, girl, both white.    309W and 310W.	Nicely matched for size, Mom is calm and attentive.
BLW-239U	BLW-228U	04/15/09	A moorit ram lamb, just born at 11:30 a.m.!  Mom won't let me get close enough yet, so I don't know if he is solid or gray.  308W. 12:30 - I checked him out head to toe when he was drier, and he looks like a solid moorit lamb.	Mom is doing a picture perfect job with her lamb, but all the other yearlings want to help.
BLW-200U	BLW-234U, our Grani son	4/15/09	Black/gray spotted ewe lamb, 307W.	She such a great Mama, and the lamb is the perfect size, big enough to stay warm and thrive without my help, but nowhere near big enough to cause trouble.
SRX-58M	Ormur	4/14/09	Twin ram lambs, one spotted black 305W and one white, 306W.	I love Dalur, and I love this ewe.  No drama to the birth at all, even though they were big.  She picked out her spot, lay down, had a lamb, washed and fed the lamb, had a second lamb, and washed and fed him too.  Then followed me to the jug.  Perfect!
BLW-821R, Silky	Mori	4/14/09	AI twins!  303W a Solid black ram with a white blaze, and 304W a solid moorit ewe lamb.	Nice set of twins!  The ram lamb has a name already as he is a lovely solid black, with a white blaze jetting down his nose.  Blaze.  What else could we call him?  His sister is a solid moorit, so Silky did well today.
BLW-124T	Goli	4/14/09	302W, A lovely, black mouflon horned ewe lamb.	Mom is just so proud and happy to have this baby!  The VAI singles are the downside of this process, but to get a mouflon horned ewe lamb is a great single to get!
BLW-403M Little Red	Mokollur	4/10/09	301W, polled solid moorit ewe lamb.	She's a beauty, and Little Red can't stop fussing over her new baby.  Born in the ten minutes it took to go in the house and find my camera, she was already up and nuzzling for her first meal.
BLW-642N Millie	Goli	4/07/07	300W, black/gray, spotted, horned ewe lamb.	Our Lamb Queen!  A single instead of twins, but VAI depresses the fertility rate of the ewes.  And what a girl!  Photos as soon as it gets light.

                                                                          

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