{"id":1932,"date":"2011-02-12T11:01:43","date_gmt":"2011-02-12T16:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homegrownonahobbyfarm.com\/?p=1932"},"modified":"2011-11-15T18:00:06","modified_gmt":"2011-11-15T23:00:06","slug":"how-close-is-the-lambing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homegrownonahobbyfarm.com\/index.php\/2011\/02\/how-close-is-the-lambing\/","title":{"rendered":"How close is the lambing???"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our first lambing season was incredibly exciting because we had absolutely no clue what to look for in a ewe that was close to delivering. The entire family constantly ran to the barn for \u201cewe-checks\u201d to see if a lamb had just dropped out.<\/p>\n

Linda Cummings (Shepherd’s Loft Farm<\/a><\/strong>) had given us a few pointers\u2014physical traits to be on the look-out for\u2014still, at four months, I was convinced Reese was ready to deliver at any minute (sheep gestation is\u00a0five months).<\/p>\n

Here are some photos taken this morning with some ewes drawing closer to their due dates. As I’ve said before, the Churro tend toward multiple births and it’s rather easy to tell who will \u201ctwin\u201d at this point. This late in the game, the babies are putting on most of their weight which really makes the ewe’s belly protrude.<\/p>\n

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Reese - "Rounding-up"<\/p><\/div>\n

On Reese, you can see how she’s \u201crounding-up\u201d on the sides. Late in the gestation period, the lambs appear to move forward from mom’s back hips and make a mound on each side of the ewe.<\/p>\n

In this next picture Pixie, a first-time mom this year, is carrying twins (99 percent sure).<\/p>\n

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Pixie "hollows"<\/p><\/div>\n

Notice the area along her spine seems to have \u201chollowed out\u201d?\u00a0 That’s another trait to look for signifying the late stages of pregnancy. My camera was flash-happy and evened out the shadows or the \u201chollows\u201d would have been easier to see.<\/p>\n

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Bagging-up<\/p><\/div>\n

One sure-fire way to tell that lambing is just days away is the ewe’s udder. In preparation for the lamb’s arrival, the ewe will “bag-up.”\u00a0 Her udder will begin to fill with milk and the physical change in the udder is undeniable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This will be our fifth lambing season and, although we now have a few years experience, it is still an incredibly exciting event.<\/p>\n

Between you and me?\u00a0 You can mark on your calendar exactly\u00a0five months from when the ewes and the ram were together…and you’ll be able to predict arrivals within days. Still, it would take the fun out of running out to the barn every few hours during that last month to see if a lamb has \u201cdropped.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our first lambing season was incredibly exciting because we had absolutely no clue what to look for in a ewe that was close to delivering. The entire family constantly ran to the barn for \u201cewe-checks\u201d to see if a lamb had just dropped out. Linda Cummings (Shepherd’s Loft Farm) had given us a few pointers\u2014physical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[35,18,19,170,20,40],"class_list":["post-1932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-family","tag-farming","tag-hobbyfarm","tag-lambing","tag-navajo-churro","tag-raising-sheep"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homegrownonahobbyfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homegrownonahobbyfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homegrownonahobbyfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegrownonahobbyfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegrownonahobbyfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegrownonahobbyfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1932\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homegrownonahobbyfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegrownonahobbyfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegrownonahobbyfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}