The Home of Beautiful Bluefaced Leicesters and Shetland Sheep

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Friday, January 21, 2011

Getting Ready For Lambs!

It's sunny but oh so cold and windy today. Working outside the barn is rough on the skin so Tim helped me get lambing pens ready in the barn for expected Bluefaced Leicester babies next weekend. Hopefully they will wait until the arctic blast has past but lambs seem to like to arrive when it's super cold. I'm usually more miserable than they are. My former farm helper, Sam, got me a new hypothermic lamb blanket that has a microwaveable lining that heats to 110 then tucks into the blanket wrapping around the cold lamb. Hopefully I won't have to use it, but it sure will be good to have it since every lambing season brings at least one or two cold lambcicles.

The Shetlands love this weather. This morning they were all lounging in the newly fallen snow very content to just be. There are only 20 Shetlands in the pen now so feeding is so much easier than it was last winter with a larger number to battle through with grain and hay. Shetland babies are expected later in February and March.

Thanks Tim for helping me get the barn ready. Having help sure makes the job go faster.

2 comments:

Carol said...

Good luck with lambing, Kathy. We're ready too, well almost. We expect BFL lambs within a week. Sure home is warms up a little bit before they hit the ground.

Becky Utecht said...

That lamb blanket warmer sounds great! I might need to get one of those. My BFL's could start lambing in the second of week of March. We've never had lambs that early before, I'm hoping for an early spring.