[Jacob-list] new Mom

[Heather Hettick]

I have not had any trouble with first time Jacob moms so far.  I'm up to
three lambs this year and two were out of first time moms and I barely
missed the births every time.  My biggest problem this year is not having
the ewes shorn and the ewe lamb moms are especially wooly underneath and
needed a trim to help the lambs find milk efficiently.  Last year I had a
first time mom have twins and she didn't need any help at all, but the twins
were noticeably smaller than the other lambs.  The boy that was born
yesterday afternoon looks a lot like the girl we had a couple days ago and
their mothers kept looking at each others lambs and getting confused so I
penned the newer mom and baby up by themselves for a couple hours just to
help them get acquainted, but overall they seem to catch on very fast to
motherhood.

We have one non-Jacob, a Tunis/Romney ewe lamb, due to lamb soon, but she
seems extremely fascinated by all the other lambs and treats them very
gently, so I'm hopeful she will do a good a job with her own as the Jacobs
do.  Most of the other ewes seem to be ignoring the new lambs except to
gently move them out of the way of food.  Only one ewe is a little rougher
than I'd like towards the new lambs.

By the way, my original flock of 4, of which I have one left now, has a
largely Fieldwood background and I have not had ewes try to steal lambs, but
I did have an experienced ewe unexpectedly reject one of her twins last
year.  He was born over two hours before his sister and was totally white.
Either she forgot about him by the time the second lamb arrived or just
decided the girl looked better- can't say I blamed her.  She did finally
sort of accept him after we forced the issue for a week or so, but he always
had to nurse quickly and from the rear and the daughter was the obvious
favorite.

Heather Hettick
Moonstruck Jacob Sheep
Creston, OH
hettick.1 at osu.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: jacob-list-admin at jacobsheep.com
[mailto:jacob-list-admin at jacobsheep.com]On Behalf Of SharHill at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 8:54 AM
To: jacob-list
Subject: [Jacob-list] new Mom


Hi all,

Our Corriedale cross ewe lambed yesterday afternoon.  2 ewes this time!
Everything is fine now, but this was her first time lambing and she didn't
seem to have the faintest clue about what was going on.  She got the first
one out, and I cleaned out its mouth.  She didn't turn around to check it
out, so I put it up  near the mom's head and she tried to butt it away.  She
showed absolutely no interest in it at all.  I ended up having to dry it off
myself, and she would have nothing to do with it.  When the second one was
born, I put it near her head and she briefly licked its head and then lost
interest.  I dried this one mostly myself as well.  We had to hold her still
to let the lambs nurse, as otherwise, she kept running away from them and
butting them occasionally.  Finally after about 3-4 hours she let them nurse
without being restrained by me and showed some interest in them by sniffing
them etc.  If I hadn't been there, these little lambs would have died, as
she
had no idea of what she was supposed to do.  They made it through the night
just fine and she is acting more motherly now, but I was wondering if this
is
common behavior for first time moms.  Do you think she will do better the
next time around?  What a shame it would have been if  these pretty little
things had died.  One of them is coal black with a white toupee, and the
other is colored almost like a Jacob, but with a solid black body and white
marking on the head, chest, legs and tail.  (the dad is our Jacob ram).  I
can't wait to see what the wool will be like.  It looks now to be nicely
crimped.

It was an exciting afternoon.  It all happened right when I brought the kids
home from school, so they got to see the whole thing.  They were impressed,
especially my daughter.  One of the lambs kept climbing up in her lap.  She
was enchanted.  This was my first time to witness the birth of lambs, so it
was pretty special for me too.

Sharon

_______________________________________________
Jacob-list mailing list
Jacob-list at jacobsheep.com
http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/jacob-list