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

Coop Build Part Three

Installation Time Or, the real business of Construction Okay, the garage build was prep time for making panels, now is the time I consider that the real building got started.  I didn't take a lot of Photos so it looks like a lot happened, which it did. Making each wall a panel allowed for fast assembly. This photo shows the piers in place and the floor set on them. It was sturdy, but a bit too wobbly for me knowing I had a few more feet of building going up soon. So I then cut (2) 2x4 braces for each pier and screwed them in using 3" gold screws, not real gold, but they are called that. Not sure why other than their color. We then attached the linoleum.  Sure we risked it getting damaged from adding this early, but by placing it under the bottom plates of all the walls, we figured less water penetration into the floor this way. So far so good- no big gouges yet. These walls went up in less than 20 minutes and I was working alone this day. By allowing an overhang...

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...

Is Smell Free, Fly Free Pig Farming Possible?

I have to find out more! I thought farms and flies/smell were synonymous, but Hawaii being the paradise it is, I heard it just might be possible. I needed to find out how we can do this. Fast. Our farm, if we are 'allowed' to call it that, is a single acre in a semi-residential community of one acre lots that are zoned Ag. It's actually a 135' x 330' lot of wavy undulating lava rock with a smattering of cinder soil that can support some grass, a few trees and some local Hawaiian plants. Our current placement of the chickens is in the far right hand corner away from the main house (NE corner) and takes up 20' x 20'. We have 30 chickens, 15 full grown and 15 adolescents and 10 young growing turkeys. They have plenty of wing room right now, but we are getting ready to move the poultry by enlarging their pen to one that is 120' x 20'. We are planning to fence in the entire rear of the property and let them roam in a large pen with both goats and p...