Presenting the OVINE HILTON at EverRanch!
The Hilton was finished the first part of the month and that was when our "lamb storm" began. I finally got some photos to put up. Including photos with sheep inside! Notice the creep pen at lower right, and the lambing jug (occupied!) in the center right.
In the top photo, look carefully and you can see the deluxe lamb cam. It's shown below in closeup. This device is a life saver. We've seen ewes in labor, ewes trying to steal lambs, lambs climbing out of jugs, lots of things. It's worth it's weight in gold just to avoid multiple barn trips in the middle of the night... and day. Of course, it doesn't eliminate all barn trips, why would we want to do that? After all, we have sheep because we like being with the sheep!
Here's the view of the Hilton that we see from the Lamb Cam:
The latest lambs are in the jug with Daisy. She had triplets on Sunday ... no, make that Monday morning - early. We came home from the Shepherds' Extravaganza and found her in labor. Only a bit later it became obvious that the lamb was not in position to be born and I had to reposition it! This was my first time sorting out and moving an unborn lamb and it was a bit scary. All turned out well, though, after number 1 was moved, numbers 2 and 3 followed in quick succession. They're shown below.
They are 2 rams and 1 ewe, bringing our lamb total for 2007 to 35. The lambs now outnumber adults with 3, maybe 4 more to lamb.
Below is Daisy's ewe lamb. She has an interesting marking on her front leg, brown and black like a splash of katmoget. She also has a small black spot between her tail and right hip. Interesting.
- Franna
2 comments:
I've heard it said that Shetlands don't come in "white," they come in black and brown with various patterns and spotting overlaid; white sheep really just have one BIG spot. Looks like Daisy's girl has some windows in her big white spot to show what her base coloring is!
It's true that "white" is genotyped at the "pattern" locus (A), and is dominant at that locus. There is so much to learn about the nuances of the different colors and patterns. Perhaps Daisy's girl is a katmoget overlaid with the white pattern - unexpected from her parents... but hey, who am I to argue?
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