Sunday, March 21, 2010

Spring in Spades!

For the first day of spring we got... three little lambs :)
Eliza has done it again! She is such an awesome mom! Two big boys and one very petite girl, all fine and nursing and full of themselves!

Still waiting for Misty and Crimson to lamb, I believe one of them will be next. I took Misty (suffolk) into the barn about a week ago because she was acting ketotic. She was stiff and not terribly excited about food. I took Eliza in at the same time because I wasn't sure which was going to lamb first. Then Eliza got stiff. She has been ketotic before and it is a scary situation! Half the things you read talk mostly about death and how little hope there is of pulling them out of it. But we did obviously and she hasn't been there again. Well now I'm thinking it has to be something else. Both sheep have good cover and are not overly fat, how could they be ketotic? Besides there are no other symptoms. I went out to feed yesterday morning and Babs (Eliza's daughter, suffolk/dorset cross) is stiff too!
So now I know it isn't ketosis. I got to thinking about it and realized it had to be the grain I bought last week. I had moved up to 18% protein from 14% (it was all I could get), apparently more abruptly than I thought I had. I talked with Laura and she agreed the grain was most likely the problem. I had also made a call to the vet that had come to take Harry's (border lamb) blood as part of a study on Hairy Lamb Disease the day that Misty started looking ill, he called me back and agreed the first thing he would look at is the feed. He suggested I buy some oats to mix in with the 18% and if it didn't take care of the problem to call him back. We'll have to wait a few days to see if it works.

And on the chicken front, we are done molting! Yay! Now I have two and half dozen eggs in my fridge, but I wanted to show you this... I wanna know who let the turkey in the hen house!?!
I think I have two hens that, more often than not, lay double eggs. Poor girls!

4 comments:

Michelle said...

Congrats on the trips! Now you have me thinking about my Inky ewe. She is so stiff and arthritic -- at least that's what it looks like. A few months ago I started adding extruded soybean meal to her grain ration to try and put some condition on her. She may be a little more arthritic-acting now. Perhaps boosting her protein is not a good idea?

Christine said...

Interesting. I never knew that small of a change in feed would make that big of a difference.

Jody said...

Your lambs are so beautiful.
It's scarey...all the things that one has to deal with in sheep!

Anonymous said...

I love (covet) the standing one with the brown and white face -- Beauteous!! Congrats on a good job to Mom. Hope all is well with the others. See you soon. Let me know the outcome on the feed thing -- may be something I need to add to my notes for future ref.