Skip to main content

Lamb or no lamb what's up Mrs. Sheep?

 What's Up?

Well, its been a few days and we have had a couple of odd ones. We are running out of time for this pregnancy to actually be a pregnancy. Goats gestational period is 145 days, give or take and she is taking as many as possible. I went to Blackies Suffolk and Veggies site† to use their gestational calculator and found out this:
Breeding Date: Since we didn't know exactly when, I used the last possible day it could have happened, the day before we picked her up which was September 6th
The calculator spit these out:
Due date- 08/30/2021
As early as-08/26/2021
As late as - 09/11/2021

So there is only 5 possible days left until she either is a fattie sheep and I have been over feeding her and it's my fault she is a tubby sheep, not a pregnant sheep OR she is just taking her time and enjoying the ride. As I stated in earlier blog posts, she has had days of what I would call Braxton-Hicks like contractions where it looked like she was in what I have been described as active labor but then it passes and she gets up and walks away. Maybe these are dry runs, or she had a bad alfalfa pellet, gas, or, but as a newbie to raising breeding sheep instead of market lambs, I am in uncharted territory here.

She does seem to pace, (she is in a 10x10 space for lambing)
She does seem to kick and bite at her belly (flies and the hairy left over coat may itch)
She does seem restless (perhaps I am reading her face incorrectly) And 
She doesn't seem to show the back end changes- full udder, wet vulva and twitchy tail
But again, this is new and I am not entirely sure what I am looking for. 
Farming is hard.


Next: Hopeful but not Expectant






†https://www.blackies.ca/lambing-calculator/

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Update

Update Chickens are growing Big news, right? Well, it has been a while since I posted here and a lot has happened. Yes, the chickens have been getting bigger; the Cornish Cross are insanely huge and the Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rock hens are now officially old enough to be called pullets.  Their Foster Moms have abandoned them, meaning they are no longer protective of them and instead are making sure they (the hens) are getting the pullets inducted into the flock's 'Pecking order'. The pullets are basically on their own, though chickens really don't need to be taught much. The pullets are finding a pecking order of their own, fussing at and with each other as it should be in the natural order of chickens. The Cornish Cross are amazing. We purchased them three weeks after the pullets and they caught up in size in just two weeks. At three weeks old, the Cross chicks were taller than the Pullets at 5 weeks. Tomorrow they will be 7 weeks old, and they are...

More Cute! Photo heavy...

 The Cute continues.  As promised, our flock has doubled in one shot. We responded to a post on Facebook regarding a mini flock for sale and snatched it up. The awesome people that run Kapanaia Farms in Kapaau, Hawaii put up a Ram, a ewe, and two sister offspring as a family unit and we fell in love immediately. three messages and two phone calls later and we were waiting for the day the babies could travel so we could head out to pick them up. This is Hemi. Not sure where they got the name, Sandra did speak of having a hard time coming up with 70 plus names every lambing, so she really couldn't recall where it came from. JoAnn and didn't have that problem and kept the name.  We decided that his name full name is Ernest Hemi Hemingway and Hemi's name is permanent. His lineage is out of Kapanaia's anchor stud Ram, 'Abacus'. A fine specimen that is fully spotted and has a history of black and white lambs. He is a cross of Katahdin and Dorper breeds. He has the sig...
Has it been THAT long? Lots have happened in the months that have gone by Lightning has healed, grown and fathered his first two broods of chicks. 12 chicks total of straight run, meaning we are still a bit unsure which one is what yet, but they are getting bigger everyday and we have introduced them into the main flock already.  The Marans.We purchased 6 Cuckoo Marans at the Pahoa feed store. We were in the area and dropped in to see what was up and there was their chick delivery- peeping away. We knew this breed laid a deeper shade of chocolate brown egg and bought the lot of 6. Turns out this breed isn't one of the "hardy" listed breeds and we lost one within a week. They are now feathering out nicely, and we were assured that all our chicks were hens.    We have also gotten turkeys! Sadly, not the breed we wanted, but then the state of Hawaii is a bit militant as to what they will and won't allow on the island. We wanted the Oscillated  breed, bu...