Ah, the yearly dilemma of figuring out whether a Soay lamb is light phase. We Soay breeders never seem to tire of talking and fussing about it, do we? At least I don’t. I have written about it several times right here, and people tell me they find one of those posts particularly useful in […]
Of the many ways shepherds can fritter away hours waiting for their Soay lambs to arrive, none is more useless than trying to figure out how many lambs we’ll get in total, i.e., which ewes will have twins and which will have just one lamb. We kid ourselves into thinking the exercise is useful for “planning.” […]
One day and several hours’ sleep after I watched a Soay lamb born in the moonlight, I captured this tranquil scene. Not a picturesque background, I admit. It is a jug, after all. But what a calm mother and baby. And it turns out this little guy will be a breeder for us one day […]
2:15 a.m. Thursday, April 5, 2012, just came in from a magical two hours with our pregnant ewes. Steve and Shawn both turned in early after a couple of really busy days – six lambings on Tuesday and seven yesterday – so I agreed to take the 9pm to midnight lamb checks. At 10:00 all […]
Last week when lambing finally began, our friends Kathy and Jim called and asked to come see the first arrivals, a set of twins from our ewe Lilly J born overnight. Hearing and seeing their reactions to the lambs reminded us once again how lucky we are to be able to raise these fetching and historically […]
After a prolonged work stoppage, the ewes at Saltmarsh Ranch agreed to assume their assigned tasks (lambing and nursing) on Day 166 after breeding began. Sources indicate the onset of lambing ends several weeks of tense negotiations and picketing. For its part, management have withdrawn their threat to withhold compensation (a.k.a. hay) and have turned […]