Asha's Lamb-Along Spring 2026

[Asha_Gail]

Using my elite shepherdess skills I have moved the laboring ewe into a larger jug and have successfully secured my ticket to bed-ville!

 

[Asha_Gail]

Milk machine is up and going and I'm down to 3 bottle lambs. Joy.

We may be facing a clostridial scours outbreak which is very much not good.

Had 6 ewes lamb today iirc which is nice.

And I'm currently sitting on the floor of the barn in the ewe pen. For fun.

 

[Asha_Gail]

The mixing pen thus far,

 

[Asha_Gail]

The milk machine,

 

[Asha_Gail]

Well tonight takes the cake for Up The Latest.

Did some more processing and ewes lambing kept us up longer. Supposedly we're supposed to get up in 3 hours to check for lambs. Hah! Sure. Let's be honest here, we (father and I) are both going to sleep through our alarms.

I'm currently eating Rice Krispies with some sugar sprinkled on top and then I'm gonna a crash and burn. Go team!

 

[Asha_Gail]

Oh and one of my pets had her lambs!

Say hi to Hatsune Miku and her little Mikulings

 

[Asha_Gail]

Well we haven't had any more downed ewes. Which is great.

However...

We lost 3 ewes in less than 12 hours to pneumonia. It honestly came out of nowhere. So we're now treating 6 ewes for pneumonia.

I was also right about the clostridial issue we're having with the lambs. It's frustrating because I feel like I could've prevented that.

Last year we'd had an issue with ewes aborting lambs, so we had fed some medication for that in the feed. Lambing last year had went so smoothly. You know what we didn't do this year? Feed that medication. Likely why we're having such a mass of issues.

I've pulled 4 lambs just now to be bottle lambs. I'm officially Over It. By that I mean I'm tired of fighting udder edema, fussing over weak lambs, crossing my fingers that the ewe will have enough milk for her lambs. For the rest of lambing I'm not gonna waste time. Honestly I don't know what I was doing, leaving some of those lambs with the ewe. Well that's not entirely true, I know exactly why I did it. I got scared. Scared of the work, and scared because of how things were going there at the start. No more of that.

It doesn't feel like it, but we haven't lost a lot of lambs so far. We've had a lot more stillbirths right out the gate, and ewe deaths, paired with the low lamb counts (a lot of singles currently) makes it feel like everything is going terribly wrong all at once. If I'd known things were going to be cursed this year I would've been more vigilant. I've spent a lot of time so far working to remind myself that things seem a lot worse than they are. Five years ago I would've been swamped, unable to sleep, hand bottling lambs that weren't gonna make it, losing lambs left and right, and utterly exhausted as well as at the end of my rope.

I've come a long way.

Now I can go to bed and not worry about the sheep. Ninety percent of all our bottle lambs survive to market, and they're plenty fat and healthy to boot. I have time to sit down and eat. Most importantly, I'm not just trying to keep myself afloat. I'm well enough off that I can actually process the issues that arise and do everything in my power to address them.

Weathering the storm, one wave at a time.

 

[Skyeknight]

I know jugs are something we use because we lamb in a barn, plus we have a lot of what I dubbed "vultures" aka lamb theives. We used to lamb out on pasture about two decades ago, but pivoted after substantial loss.

Bit late to this, but it's crazy to me someone would do that. We also have a very prolific breed of sheep and too many lambs are positioned wrong for them to be able to fully do it themselves.

Supposedly we're supposed to get up in 3 hours to check for lambs.

You get up every 3 hours every night to check? Here in the Netherlands I know other farmers check about every 4 hours. Although my parents were very smart and use an old baby monitor. That way you wake up because of the bleating during the lambing and don't have to destroy your sleep schedule. Although this might work better because we have about 50 ewes. Sometimes you do miss them but rarely. Right now we also use a camera, but that's only to be able to physically look if we hear anything on the baby monitor without having to leave your bed.

Well we haven't had any more downed ewes. Which is great.

However...

We lost 3 ewes in less than 12 hours to pneumonia. It honestly came out of nowhere. So we're now treating 6 ewes for pneumonia.

I was also right about the clostridial issue we're having with the lambs. It's frustrating because I feel like I could've prevented that.

Last year we'd had an issue with ewes aborting lambs, so we had fed some medication for that in the feed. Lambing last year had went so smoothly. You know what we didn't do this year? Feed that medication. Likely why we're having such a mass of issues.

I've pulled 4 lambs just now to be bottle lambs. I'm officially Over It. By that I mean I'm tired of fighting udder edema, fussing over weak lambs, crossing my fingers that the ewe will have enough milk for her lambs. For the rest of lambing I'm not gonna waste time. Honestly I don't know what I was doing, leaving some of those lambs with the ewe. Well that's not entirely true, I know exactly why I did it. I got scared. Scared of the work, and scared because of how things were going there at the start. No more of that.

It doesn't feel like it, but we haven't lost a lot of lambs so far. We've had a lot more stillbirths right out the gate, and ewe deaths, paired with the low lamb counts (a lot of singles currently) makes it feel like everything is going terribly wrong all at once. If I'd known things were going to be cursed this year I would've been more vigilant. I've spent a lot of time so far working to remind myself that things seem a lot worse than they are. Five years ago I would've been swamped, unable to sleep, hand bottling lambs that weren't gonna make it, losing lambs left and right, and utterly exhausted as well as at the end of my rope.

I've come a long way.

Now I can go to bed and not worry about the sheep. Ninety percent of all our bottle lambs survive to market, and they're plenty fat and healthy to boot. I have time to sit down and eat. Most importantly, I'm not just trying to keep myself afloat. I'm well enough off that I can actually process the issues that arise and do everything in my power to address them.

Weathering the storm, one wave at a time.

Sadly to get experience with keeping animals sometimes they will die, but you can't get the right experience without being in the actual situation. Take it all as a big learning experience and to do better in the future.

 

[Asha_Gail]

Bit late to this, but it's crazy to me someone would do that. We also have a very prolific breed of sheep and too many lambs are positioned wrong for them to be able to fully do it themselves.


You get up every 3 hours every night to check? Here in the Netherlands I know other farmers check about every 4 hours. Although my parents were very smart and use an old baby monitor. That way you wake up because of the bleating during the lambing and don't have to destroy your sleep schedule. Although this might work better because we have about 50 ewes. Sometimes you do miss them but rarely. Right now we also use a camera, but that's only to be able to physically look if we hear anything on the baby monitor without having to leave your bed.


Sadly to get experience with keeping animals sometimes they will die, but you can't get the right experience without being in the actual situation. Take it all as a big learning experience and to do better in the future.

Absolutely! It's all part of learning and we've made leaps and bounds from where we started.

Currently we have under 500 head, and we lamb twice a year. Back when we lambed on pasture it was primarily due to lack of facilities. We built a barn back in 2012 (iirc) and even from there we've grown and changed. We used to feed hay, but now we feed corn silage.

I don't assist a lot, our breed of choice is Polypay and most ewes lamb just fine on their own. Three years ago I was up for nearly 24hrs at a time because we lambed so heavily, so fast. Plus we had a lot of sick or weak lambs to manage. We're getting better, slowly. I can sleep in about 4 hour intervals to check on the sheep/bottle lambs. We've looked into barn cameras but we have no internet so things are a little rough on that front XD

A lot of it is just the fact that we're lambing 250(ish) head in about a month. We do use teaser rams to help get everyone in sync and cycling, which definitely speeds things up! Right now we're almost two weeks into lambing and only having 5 ewes lamb a day which is super weird. This time last year we were over half way done lmao

Honestly I love hearing how others raise their sheep and what programs and operations they use. Its a great way to learn and share knowledge!

 

[Asha_Gail]

Miku and her babies <3
She's such a good mama and I love her for it!