Big Island Chickens

 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 a...

  Mrs. Sheep is on Lamb watch; or not. I have raised sheep before, but never for lambing, only market animals so I have not been exposed to the idiosyncrasies of sheep labor. I am however, confident that barring a breech birth or multiples, I can handle most medical emergencies, including birthing. Handling them and knowing the processes and stages of birthing are completely different areas of expertise so I differ to those that know in the areas I lack. First a bit of background about Mrs. Sheep.  We bought our first ewe sheep off Craig's list. We got two of them the same day- April 7th, 2021. Well, the guy we got them from stated that the sheep we have come to name, Mrs. Sheep might have been bred since she was in a pasture that had a ram running in it, but he wouldn't definitively say yes or no since he was "away for most of the time". Just in case, we fed her like she was expecting and she did get a bigger belly. As time goes by, she gets bigger, and we feed more,...