Daisy and Petunia's Amazing Road Trip

Well, it's been a pretty crazy time of lambing at Hill Giant Farm lately. So busy, we haven't had time to update. We've had a number of deaths on the farm as a result of pneumonia and the cold, damp weather. However, we've also had some real success stories too. On Sunday April 22, we had 15 lambs born between 1:00 and 11:00 p.m. It was a baby boom to say the least! Two of our favourite lambs at the moment are Daisy and Petunia our bottle babies. We feed them both 4 times a day and they are growing to be big and strong. On Thursday, Daisy and Petunia went on a fabulous road trip to M's work. Below are some photos of the journey for you to enjoy.

Daisy and Petunia ready and waiting at the door for their great adventure.

All bundled up in the car. What's with all that rain?

Petunia making friends. They were wildly popular with all of M's coworkers and with
the various people who came into her work on Thursday.

Taking a ride on the chair cart. Shortly after this photo, Petunia jumped out of
their bucket. Daisy knows a good thing when she sees it, so she stuck around
for the ride.

With the addition of Daisy, Petunia, and the various other lambs born lately, we have a total of 26 lambs at Hill Giant Farm. Our barn is noisy, but the lambs sure are cute!

2012 Lambing Report- Part 4

Today was definitely the busiest day we've had lambing. A total of 7 lambs were born today, 2 sets of twins and a set of triplets. The first set of twins were rams and were born this morning. The mother took to one fine, but we had to coax her into accepting and feeding the second. Several times we came into the barn to find she'd kicked him out of the pen, but as of 9:30 tonight, she seems to have accepted him.

After doing several other chores and feeding Daisy, we returned to the barn to find 5 brand new lambs, still wet, calling like crazy for their mothers. It was a busy few moments as we didn't have any more bonding pens to put the new lambs and their mothers in. So, our "oldest" lambs (4 days and 2 days) got tagged, needled and elastics to dock their tails and were sent out into the "big pen" with their mothers and everyone else. It's neat to see how quickly they and their mother can find one another even in the big flock just by sound. Tomorrow the first chore after feeding will be to build some more pens.

There was no time to take pictures today. Tomorrow we'll try and post a pic of the lambs with their tags- very cute!! Counting the twin females, twin males and triplet males born today our grand total for lambs this week is 13; 9 rams and 4 ewes. Stay tuned for more excitement in the days to come!

2012 Lambing Report- Part 3

Daisy under the glow of the heat lamp.

Lots of work on the farm today.

 Sometimes when a ewe is having a large lamb or multiple births and space is running out in her uterus, she will have something called a prolapse. Basically, her insides start pushing out. On Tuesday R had a ewe prolapse. Along with his brother, R managed to get everything back inside (with surprisingly little difficulty- sometimes it can be quite difficult) and made a harness for her so that it wouldn't happen again. Today, she lambed, giving birth to a set of triplet ewes .Unfortunately, one triplet was a still birth. The second was strong and healthy; quickly up and drinking, calling, lots of life. The third one needed to be brought into the house and put under the heat lamp. She wasn't doing very well, was developing signs of hypothermia and couldn't drink on her own. So, M brought her into the house and set her up under some heat and began bottle feeding her. 4 feedings a day for the first week. The primary concern today, after getting her warm, was making sure that Daisy (the ewe lamb) got enough colostrum. Colostrum is the first milk produced by a ewe after she has lambed out. It is important for lambs to get some because it contains antibodies and helps them to fight infections. We tried to get Daisy to drink from her mother, but she wasn't up to it. Next, M tried to milk the mother, and was promptly kicked- so that didn't work. Luckily, you can purchase colostrum at your local feed store. Three feedings and 14 hours later, we're pleased to report that Daisy seems to be doing well. She is now standing on her own and calling or baaing at us. But, experience has taught us that anything can happen in the first 36 hours, so she's not out of the woods yet. We'll do our best and hope she continues to get stronger.

Moving the seed drill off the trailer.

In other news, R and our friend went to pick up the seed drill mentioned in our Frugal Friday post on Kijiji. Thank goodness for neighbours! We have a neighbour with an excellent tilting trailer that he let us borrow. Now that the seed drill is bought and picked up we'll be all set to plant. We have a bit of field soil preparation to do- discing and picking stones, but by the beginning of May we hope to be planting. Our intention is to plant mixed grain (oats and barley) under-seeded with Timothy-Alfalfa-Red Clover hay. When we combine the grain off the straw that's left will include some hay and will prepare the field to be a strong hayfield next year. Another step towards                  
                                                                                       being self-sustaining at Hill Giant Farm.

2012 Lambing Report: Part 2

Today's lambs looking for their first drink.

We had a very pleasant surprise when we went out to the barn this morning. We found that another ewe had successfully delivered twin rams. They were so new that they were still wet and Mom was just beginning to lick them off. Once safely in the pen they were quite quick in figuring out which end and part of Mom the food comes from. For her part, she is a very protective mother, who is quite sure that we don't really need to pick up the lambs and check them over. 

This brings our lamb total for 2012 to 4 rams. Good news for a couple more lamb customers!

 

Have any questions about lambing? Feel free to ask in the comments section and we'll answer them promptly.

Two day old lambs.

2012 Lambing Report- Part 1

After over a week of looking like they might burst, the sheep at Hill Giant Farm are finally lambing. Our first pair of twins arrived this morning just before lunch. Twin rams- good news for two Hill Giant Farm lamb customers! Stay tuned for more updates and tallies as the fun continues. Interested in being a lamb customer? It's easy. Just email us at hillgiantfarm@gmail.com.