Big Island Chickens

 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...

  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,...