There just isn’t anything much of interest going on.  I am working on the next issue now, and because I am HUGE my carpal tunnel syndrome has kicked in, so less typing.  I think I will be able to peice it together, although I may have to make use of a typist….ahem I mean Beau.

The little lamb by the way seems to be doing great, he is in with the flock now and keeping up fine so he should be good.  Two weeks with splints on corrected his pasterns, and I am hoping time will correct his shoulder.  I guess I should have taken him into the vet, but for one, I didn’t see what they could do and also they said that if it was broken or dislocated that he wouldn’t be able to walk.

I am starting to doubt that, but too late now.  Hind sight is always 20 - 20.  So, he runs around fine and is getting bigger and stronger so I suppose it will work out fine anyway regardless.  Now we are just choosing the few lambs that will be registered, and their names…

I am still working on pictures for taking a batt and pulling it into roving.  I am seriously considering trying to do an online video (gasp).  I didn’t get this put in last issue because of time or laziness which ever you want to think… So now I can put it in this issue.  I have a bunch of great angora fiber given to me by Heidi, and Jordan.  Heidi is from Norway and Jordan is from Missouri.  So I want to make some lovely blends with it.  I prefer to blend it with some nice lambs wool or something than use it straight.

Speaking of angoras, in the next week or two I will own some.  Dominic is doing rabbits for 4H, and so instead of a meat type rabbit, why not fiber I says?  Well, he says “Fuzza-buns….CUTE!”  so we will be getting 4 show quality breeding rabbits for him.  I wanted one, but found someone who wanted to trade for lambs, so Clare and Star will be going to live with Jeanette, and four fuzza-buns will be living here.

Pictures when I get them home.  I still have to make cages, although I now have all the supplies so Dominic and I can start working on that soon.  (heh heh, does anyone see an article here?)  Angora rabbits: The fiber pet for ANYONE!

Can’t wait!

Michelle at boulderneigh wins the contest.  So, thanks to everyone for guessing.  Since nobody guessed on Justina, I guess I will close the contest and get on with life.

My kids are all in 4H and Elizabeth and Teresa are in Clover Kids, which is for the 5 and upers.  Teresa is only 4, but they let her come anyhow.  We taught all the clover kids to spin this month at  the meeting.  It was really great. 8 kids ages 4 - 8 were able to learn how to spin on a drop spindle.

There were boys, and girls, 8 in all who learned and everyone had a fantastic time, despite the leaders all being wound on backwards by some assemblist I employ.  Ahem (Beau)  will learn someday which way to wind it on…  Anyhow all the kids had a blast and I have to say it was the fastest meeting ever and a huge sucess.

All the kids picked it up pretty fast, and the parents were nice enough to let me post their pictures on my blog.

Well, I took a bad picture, this one would be me!  Still she’s cute even blinking!

It was kind of hectic teaching 8 littler kids all at once, and the meeting only lasts about an hour, thats  not much time, but we made it count well.  They all left with yarn, that’s what counts, and they spun it themselves.  William took the extra spindles and unspun it… He’s a real out of the box kind of spinner…little stinker.

Heh heh, as you can see, amny of these little kids can do better than most adults lol.  They learn it so fast it’s amazing.  I am always so impressed with how well they do.  Look at that little boogers yarn!  Better than mine was for a few hundred yards….but maybe I’m just a fantastic, amazing and wonderful teacher….probably not.

I think that is all of the kids, except the last two.  Can you believe I forgot to take a photo of my own kids spinning?  What a horrible Mother I am…

On a rather depressing note, Mist finally lambed on Monday and it wasn’t pretty.  I managed to save her and the lamb, but lets just say poor Dominic had to hold her down, and I came away covered in gore head to toe.  Mom is doing great after a pretty aggressive round of antibiotics and anti inflammatorys, and baby is improving, but I suspect he is irrepairably damaged.

I thought I had taken pictures of him but I guess I forgot as they aren’t here on the camera.  I’ll post some in a few days.  He was huge, almost 10 pounds, which in Shetlands 7 pounds is a big boy….  He had one leg back as well, so the leg that was presented got pulled and yanked to the point that his shoulder is all out of wack.  It seems to be improving, there isn’t much to be done about it except hope and give it time.  He would get up and put weight on it from the start, so he has a good chance.  He also had some sort of tendon issue, and walked on his wrists instead of his hooves in front.  Imagine if you walked on the back of your hands instead of on your palms while crawling… I made him some little splints and I am happy to say his left foot is now normal, but the right one (that I pulled on) is still pretty floppy.  So he has to keep wearing his blue shoe on that foot.

His back legs also have something wrong with them.  Poor little guy is floppy in the opposite way back there.  He walks on his pasterns instead of his hooves.  Imagine a cat walking flat footed if you know what I mean.   Anyhow he nurses and gets around well enough to take care of himself.

Mom worrys about him, and I can tell that she wants me to make it ok, and resents that I am not.  Poor girl, I am desperatly trying to save him, so that at least she has a baby to take care of after all that pain.  He is improving and I hope to have him out with the others in a another week.  If I can get that right front leg to working better I think he can manage.  He has a really strong will to go on.  Anyhow, kind of a depressing way to finish off lambing season, and thus why I have been so late to post about him.

So, new contest starts, same rules as always, comment and enter to win!  Every comment is entered into a drawing that will take place around the 15th of next month.

Congratulations Michelle, good guessing.

First Brietta and Lucy, and then I’ll explain about Maria.

Brietta lambed two twin ram lambs on April 3, at about 3:50. We have bought breeding stock to breed for spotted sheep and Jerome (the ram we used) was chosen to bring this into the flock. You can read more about that here. Well, so in short, I expected this year to get what I got from Ashlin and the others. Mostly plain sheep, with a little white on them. My poor preggo self almost had an accident when Breitta presented me with this:

In Shetland speak, this is a moorit yuglet flecket ram. That means mostly white, with brown patches of color on the body, and brown eye patches. I wasn’t expecting this at all, but this is exactly my breeding goal…

I put her in the jug and went in to use the bathroom and when I came back out, she was grunting again when I got back, and low and behold another one had been born. I did expect another lamb, but not another yuglet flecket! What a surprise. With pounding heart I did the butt check, another ram…oh well.

What a cutie though! They really are so much cuter when they are all spottie! This one was born at about 4:10 pm.

So all that was left was Lucy, who we thought may have not settled after all and Mist. We caught Lucy and checked out her udder, and she was bagged up, so we knew that she would be lambing after all. Friday night Beau went out to feed the sheep and Lucy ran up as normal and ate with the rest of them. He thought nothing of this. A few minutes later as he was feeding the horses, he heard a lamb bleating, so he went to look and found this cute little booger:

So he was born about 9 pm on Friday, but that’s sorta a guess lol. So the lambing saga continues.

Mist has still done nothing, and I am beginning to suspect that she will lamb on about the 14th instead. Sometimes even though they breed, they don’t take or settle. So that would mean she will lamb on the next cycle, although no other breeding activity was seen. Mist however did not deny us some excitement. As Beau had found the lamb on Friday night, he forgot the scoops (empty) on the ground out in the yard. The sheep run on the yard so we don’t have to mow. But, watch where you step, if you please. Saturday morning I was called out of bed to witness how Mist’s tendancy to stick her head into things finally backfired.

moar funny pictures
So you might go over and vote for it and help make me famous. I would really like to see it get published.

But what about Maria? Maria is Mist’s daughter from last year. She is one year old at the end of this month and she has been in the past quite the burr under my blanket. If you need a good laugh, read this. I only share this stuff to keep from going crazy, and also because if I can laugh at myself, well then it isn’t so bad when everyone else does too. Besides, it was really funny.

Mist and Maria are houdinis, and they drive me insane. I have thought about selling them, because they are too smart for any fencing system. Maria is not supposed to be exposed to a ram, and out of the blue, Elizabeth our 5 year old daughter came in to tell us that Maria was lambing. Say what????

Maria had this georgeous Ag flecket ewe lamb at about 2:50 this afternoon. We plan on naming it oopsie.

So, all that is left is Mist. I am too tired to look back and see what anyone guessed right now. But just to spice things up, here is one last one. Justina was dumped here on us by some animal lover who thought she would be happier living in the wild no doubt. Many people have the misconception that they can just set cats and dogs “free”. Well she was half starved and beat up, and now she is expecting anytime. Lucky for us, unless she has a huge litter we already have excellent homes for them all.

I feel rotten about this, because although many people breed their ewe lambs, I hadn’t meant to, and she really wasn’t big enough in my opinion. There was a time when she escaped into the breeding group, but I could have sworn she cycled after that, so we thought she wasn’t bred. She did have some trouble, as it was another big ol single. We got two of them this year. Lucy’s was a good normal size, but Ashlin and poor little Maria had big babies. Poor thing. She seems to be happy as a clam now though.

Whew, what a week! Only one more to go!

We haven’t chosen a name yet, but Ashlin lambed this morning at about 9:45.

This little guy had a rough start.  His Mama was SO spooky that when we walked outside she got so excited apparently her labor stopped.  We didn’t even go within 50 feet of her…But once I started walking towards her she did go into the catch pen.  And once she tried to run through the fence I caught her and stuffed her into a jug with the babies head and feet hanging out.  It had been a nose and two feet for over an hour, so time to intervene before baby gets overly stressed.  So with just a bit of help he was born and even though she was a real pain in the patootie, she is a great Mama.  Everyone is doing fine so far…

I am breeding for spots so, I got some at least, I wish he had been a girl lamb, but that’s the breaks.

Mary L guessed someone would lamb today between 9 and 10. one of each, so she got a 50%, Michelle is still in the lead.  Must be becuase her husband is a vet….  Mary and Lesley, you can guess again if you want.

Anyone else is also welcome to reguess, Mist and Brietta are left to lamb, Mist was due on Sunday, and Brietta was due today.  Mist is a second year lamber and Brietta is a firstimer.

Here is a picture of Mandy’s kids that were born Sunday morning - I haven’t had much luck getting a good photo of them yet.  I’m tired from being up and all.  Soon…