Beginner's Mistakes

I'm reading the books, scanning the blogs and staring at my sheep a lot, but still, it seems I have much to learn.

It was January, we were in the midst of winter, yet many shepherd are talking of lambing. I chalked it up to warmer climates, most of them being in the South or West, but that made me wonder . . . "when will my lambs be here?"

My brilliant idea was to check on Whispering Pines' blog to see when  their lambs started arriving last year. Logic told me that since these sheep came from them, they'll continue to follow close to the same schedule. After a quick look, I started planning for the beginning of April. Mike and I decided to build lambing pens and give shots about the middle of March.

THEN, a few weeks later, barely into February, a local friend of mine asked if I had lambs yet. What? Lambs in February? No . . . we're planning for April. 

And as soon as that thought crossed my mind, I realized the fault in my logic. Sheltering Pines actually plans their breedings. We've just allowed Knox to enjoy his harem at will. I have no idea when the ewes became pregnant.

Panic quickly set it, and Mike and I cleared our schedules one weekend last month and built lambing pens.

We now have two nice-sized pens for ewes and lambies.

And then we had to figure out what to do about shearing. It was too cold to shear last month, but I really couldn't tell what was going on back there. So my friend Sue (she owns The Critter Ranch AND provided me with the llamas) came over and we crotched the girls.

Crotching is when you shear just the back-end and udder areas so that birthing is cleaner and lambs can easily find their milk supply. The ladies were so humiliated.

After getting through that day, though, I was more relieved about the imminent birthing process. Mainly, because none of the girls had really started bagging up too much, and bellies weren't quite as big as they look with all that wool on them.

We're now half-way through March, and we're ready whenever they decide to come. I've been watching udders fill, but nobody is huge. However, I've read over and over that bagging up isn't a reliable way to predict due date. It's still fun to see the progress though.

This was Sparkles two days ago. Today, when I checked, Peridot is in the lead. I'll keep everyone posted!