RE: More sheep

This is her third lambing, so she is around 4, maybe a couple months shy
of that. She had triplets the first time she lambed and twins last year.
I have read that they can be productive for about 10 years, but we've
never kept any that long. We have sold off the whole bunch a couple
times, like when we took a long vacation in England, so we haven't had
any actually get old on us. The other ewe that had triplets this year is
3 yrs old.

Cyndi


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gardenchat@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On
Behalf Of Daryl
Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 8:31 AM
To: gardenchat@hort.net
Subject: Re: [CHAT] More sheep

How old is your ewe that it had quads? I remember reading that quads are

more likely when a ewe is aging, but less able to care for them. Bottle
feeding is fun, but as you said, a lot of work, especially when you have
a
day job. Still, losing one is never easy.

d



> Our hugely pregnant ewe finally gave birth yesterday while we were at
> work. Four lambs! But sadly one died. If we'd been at home and
watching
> we probably could have saved it, the birth sac did not break so I'm
> afraid it suffocated. We'll never know for sure, but we do have three
> healthy little ones. They were happily following momma ewe and nursing
> when we got home.  I'm trying to look on the positive side, if there
had
> been four there is no question that we would have had to supplement
them
> with milk and that would have been a lot of work. The ewe has the
> biggest udder I've ever seen on a sheep but I'm pretty sure 3 would be
> the limit. Still, I'd rather have had the live lamb...quads are not
> unheard of but not terribly common in Suffolks.
> Anyway the three are very cute. Suffolks are born black but one of
these
> little ones is sort of splotchy grey and white. They always even out
as
> they get older but now it makes a handy ID method. Hopefully this
> weekend I can take some pics of all the lambs.
> So two down, one to go, hoping for another set of triplets and an easy
> delivery without our intervention. I'll take the easy delivery over
> extra lambs any day.
>
> Cyndi

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