umbrella category for everything about lambing (at least that I can think of)
Now that the summer temperatures are approaching the 100 degree mark, the thought of having to shear our sheep and wrestle with all that hot wool gives me the willies – yuk! Thankfully, the lore about Soay shedding their own fleece is true; with one notable exception, Soay sheep really do cast off their fleece […]
So many of you have asked whether Tiny Tim’s adoption by Lindsey worked out that an additional post seems the most efficient way to share news of his progress. Bottom line: this little Soay sheep is just fine. He loves his new mom and he is fearless in the lamb play yard. Rather than run […]
Clarification: two of the smartest people I know read this post and did not understand what is necessary to make a graft/adoption work when Ewe A has lost a lamb and Ewe B is rejecting her lamb. Ewe A will only adopt Ewe B’s lamb if it smells like Ewe A’s dead lamb. You can […]
One of the few vexing behaviors of Soay sheep is the tendency of a first-born Soay twin to be temporarily “adopted” by a meddlesome “aunt,” another ewe who has not yet lambed but whose hormones are starting to kick in. Let me explain. It is not uncommon for pregnant ewes to be very curious about […]
Remember two years ago when we had a teeny lamb weighing only 1 pound 15 ounces? We could not resist naming him “Saltmarsh Peanut,” and Peanut he is to this day. By way of reminder, here he is in Steve’s hands a few hours after he was born: Although lambing has begun in earnest for […]
As we were waiting around this week for our ewes to swing into action, it occurred to us that it really is not fair for the lambs to get all the attention. They do the all the work, after all. So we decided to put together an introduction to lambing that features some of our […]