Notwithstanding the twelve unplanned lambs born in January and February, here are the official first lambs of the officially planned lambing season! A couple of white and brown ewelambs. Lambs should really start arriving in earnest today, and this ewe was due tomorrow. So, these twin girls got a jumpstart on a sunny Thursday. I didn’t see them born, just found them clean and fed on a midday check, my favorite kind.
I was able to move the sheep out of the mud pit sacrifice area March 22. It’s lovely to see them on green grass. I think we are all very relieved. Many of the ewes are very dark brown from laying in the mud, so I’m looking forward to them rinsing off in the rain and wet grass, as well as shedding, so they look cleaner. 
I set-stocked them for a week in our big pasture, before fencing them in to an “L” shape to force them to eat the reed canarygrass down there, which is not their favorite. Today I’ll move them closer to the house and rotate them across our hillside so it’s more convenient for me to check on them.
There were some logistics to manage in the weeks leading up to lambing. First was to clean out the barn. I realized from my notes that I hadn’t done it since November of 2015, so it was more than a year’s accumulation of bedding in there. (And, would you believe it, that’s all not really bedding in there, but rather hay-wasted hay they pull out of my poorly designed feed troughs!) I think it was about 18” deep. It took seven hours in the tractor seat to move all that material to the compost pile, plus some extra time moving the indoor sheep outside in a temporary pen, and re-bedding the barn when I finished. I worked on it over two days. 
Next, I sorted all 35 ewelambs out of the pasture group and walked them up to the barn, along with a few skinny ewes I am concerned about. This allowed me to easily do blood samples on all the lambs to assess which ones were pregnant. I expected a lot of them to be open, our winter hay didn’t seem that great, it’s been stressful cold and wet, and the ewes are still small. Nine tested positive or in the gray-area “re-check” zone. (Those, I’ve learned, can be re-tested in a few weeks. If their protein levels rise, they are definitely pregnant; if they fall, it likely means they were pregnant, but are no longer…) I kept those maybe/yes ewelambs indoors, and sent the rest outside. All of the Jan and Feb early lambs and their mothers went outside too.
It was crowded in the barn with all those sheep, I had to feed them three times a day. I was crossing my fingers that one wouldn’t try to give birth in all that chaos; thankfully, none did. It was just for five days, as long as it took for me to sort, do blood draws, and wait for the results and sort again. Now, I have just a small “group of concern” in the freshly cleaned barn that I can monitor carefully during lambing, and feed them well. I also have the last four 2016 butcher lambs in there, waiting to leave for Easter! It’ll be great to have those gone. 
Moving a large group of ewelambs from the pasture is a bit of a nail-biter. They are more easily agitated than adult ewes, less experienced with the dogs, and more reluctant to enter the barn if they’ve never been in there before. The drainages ditches are full, deep and cold, so I was anxious about sheep falling in, if they took a wrong turn. My border collies are getting old- twelve and thirteen- and they don’t run as fast as they used to! So, I’ve started to use some crutches when I need to do a job like this.
I intentionally chose some mature ewes to go with them, that calming influence always helps; and there were definitely a couple of older ewes that had me concerned enough to want to feed them in the barn. I’ve also started working the dogs on flex leads a lot more. This curtails them from doing unnecessary running around and tiring themselves out. I can keep them behind the sheep in a driving position, and prevent them from making a naughty swing to the heads, stopping and turning the sheep when I don’t want them to. No more chasing a breakaway sheep down and gripping it! And I can “steer” the dogs, which, for me, is often more intuitive and effective for both human and dog than verbal commands. 
I’ve also started to set up Electronet to help steer the sheep through difficult areas. I don’t electrify it, but just its presence is enough to guide them. Using it to create a Y chute into the barn door really helps, then the dogs don’t have to try to cover both sides of the opening and have the sheep blow past multiple times and circle the barn. Instead, we can just push the sheep into the opening, then patiently pressure them for as long as it takes to make them go inside.
Bringing the group back down to the pasture was easier, as this is a direction which pleases them, to move towards green grass and other sheep in view. I have a farm intern this spring, and it was a help to have her here, as we could fan out more with the two dogs to keep the sheep on track.
Now, with all the sheep where they need to be, I am ready for lambing to get into high gear! I think we’ll have a slightly higher number of lambs than last year, maybe about 120 or so.
April 2, 2017 at 11:35 pm
I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s let her barn go that long; I think I last did mine in September of 2015 and have been feeling guilty. Due to health issues and lousy weather/timing, I haven’t gotten to it until now – with my lambing due to start in just 2 1/2 weeks*. The deep litter system is great until cleaning time. My shed is only a couple hundred square feet for my 10 wee sheep, but no tractor here, so I’m cutting through it with a pitchfork as I imagine my ancestors cut peat. It’s tedious, but only another 20-30 wheelbarrow loads and I’ll be mostly done. The sheep are now at the correct level for the hay feeder, too – a bonus!
Are you going to get another BC at some point to help with herding? (I have contacts, though I’m sure you do too.) My Rottweiler helps me, but is completely untrained, so those naughty things (JUST when the sheep are beginning to head in the right direction, she wants to head them off, or yes, chasing down the one that runs) can be exasperating. I mostly just hang onto her collar – her presence by my side is enough to move the sheep into the pasture, where they know she won’t bother them; her instinct is such that (it seems as if) it’s as deeply satisfying to her to have them running through that gate as it is to me. Of course the sheep are used to the routine too, so it’s mostly them, not either of us, that makes it all work as well as it does.
Looking forward to future posts and hearing how lambing goes – best wishes for a healthy, abundant crop of lambs!
Maureen
*I’ve copied out your lamb milk replacer recipe, just in case.
April 3, 2017 at 6:03 am
Wow, it’s been a long time since I last visited your farm. It’s fun to learn how you work with the animals and to see all the labor that goes into taking care of them. Thank you for continuing with your blog.
April 3, 2017 at 6:54 am
I learned much about German horse keeping this Winter, because I boarded at a large facility the last 4 months. One thing I could not grasp was the deep litter method for horses. It appalled me. I would spend 30 minutes sifting through my stall and the farm hand would have 6 stalls cleaned in that time. He’d say, “You’re doing it wrong.”
Then two other people said, “You are cleaning your stall wrong. You are being wasteful.” Who cares, I thought, I have to pay for bedding myself, and I have time. And I don’t consider their stalls clean.
They told me my horse never lies down to sleep. That’s no good…so when the farm hand came into my stall and demonstrated, “You have to leave the wet spot, it becomes a mattress!” I laughed at his calling it a mattress, but I tried it. 3 weeks ago I caved, I left it and then made the stall “pretty” by putting new bedding on top.
And then someone took a photo of my horse lying down at night. It works?
I could never do this at my place. But most German stalls are concrete. So it makes sense that they leave a urine mattress. I’ve learned in many ways that concrete and horses are good together: Winter paddocks, stalls, and working on it, it’s no problem. 10 years ago I was shocked but I get it now.
April 4, 2017 at 3:17 am
LOL, Lytha, yes, I imagine the concept takes some getting used to. I know there are whole philosophies on why it works, and I only have superficial knowledge. But in general, the idea is that leaving urine and feces in the bedding, and just continuing to add more, creates a compost microbiome in the underlying layers. It produces a lot of heat, which the animals like to lay on. And there is some magical action where, though there are obviously a lot of microbes active in there, they are “good” microbes, which prevent “bad” bacteria from running amok. So it’s actually a very clean system.
Of course, you have to add enough fresh/dry material to keep it balanced, so that it’s not poopy on the top or too wet with urine; it needs to have that compost-ey balance of enough moisture for healthy decomposition, but not so much the animal on top is making contact with a lot of urine or feces… And I think those general rules of compost apply: it needs a mix of “green” and “brown” material, which somehow balances the right amount of nitrogen and other components to keep the pile “cooking.” So I think if you remove all the pee/poop that’s the “green” source, it upsets this balance, if all that’s in there is dry/brown material. Just like if all you put in your compost bin is dead leaves or just lawn clippings, it dies- it needs a mix of both.
April 4, 2017 at 3:17 am
Thank you Kathryn Grace!
April 4, 2017 at 3:22 am
Maureen, yes, I’ll need another border collie at some point. I’m wrestling with the decision to get a pup and hire out some training (as I don’t think I have time/energy to do the training myself) or try to find a started dog somewhere. I wouldn’t mind someone’s failed out trial dog, as I don’t need them to do too much, just gather, drive and lie down in small pastures. Getting a pup more often makes the best house companion, but getting an adult is also appealing to not have to raise a pup!!
April 5, 2017 at 8:06 am
Very interesting. Warmth and good microbes – now I wish I’d felt the bedding. But I don’t believe it was deep enough, in any stall, to have created composting. I assume it would have to be at least a foot deep. Also, when I stripped the stall after the 3 weeks, I think I would have noticed steam because it was a cold morning. Hm! I recall visiting a farm and the owner showed me his horses’ run-in and told me they don’t clean it out all Winter long. Indeed, the horses almost had to duck to get in the door!
April 5, 2017 at 2:53 pm
Lytha, yeah, I’m not sure what the min volume/depth needs to be for good compost action; and I’m not sure how warm it gets when it’s a “passive” pile. I toured WSU’s compost facility a few years ago, it is mind-blowing. They run tubes through the bottoms of the piles with holes in them and fans on the end, which suck air down through the piles. The fans are connected to PCs that are also connected to temperature probes in the piles. The PCs algorithmically control the fan speed to keep the temp where they want it. The hotter they want it, the more air they pull through to feed the microbes. They also “turn” them mechanically in some periodic fashion.
They run them hot enough that the whole pile is sterilized, and the animal bedding in all of WSU’s barns is now in a closed-loop system; it goes to the compost facility when “dirty”, and when it’s done composting, it goes back into the barns as a clean product! They compost all the deads coming out of the vet hospital (which is like a daily box truck delivery…), including a lot of large animals, which are consumed, bones and all, in a matter of weeks because of the way they manage the piles. It is really incredible; and I learned that the dudes at WSU who run that facility (who kinda just started out as bulldozer operators there originally) are now world-renowned experts in composting.
But, I would imagine it’s different if it’s just a few inches of material in a low-airflow stall; probably still microbe action happening and some heat, but not as dramatic of an effect as a big, active pile that’s being turned & managed to oxygenate it to maximum effect?