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First Lamb!


jenfitzh20
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Yes, mama is a pretty lady and honestly, she's not that big. She's no bigger than our cheviots. She was halter trained as a lamb (not by us) so she's pretty easy to handle. Although she wasn't too keen on being caught yesterday to check her milk.

 

BTW, I know its not a great pic to see her bag, but is it just me or does this ewe have unusually large teats? None of our other ewes have teats anywhere near as large. They look like a dairy cows teats! They're so big the poor lamb (and he's not tiny by any means) had trouble getting his mouth around them. Everyone thats seen her has commented on how large they are. NorthfieldNick, is this a cottswold trait??

 

Jen

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Is the lamb able to nurse off of her teats?? I had a couple of related, mother and daughter, Katahdin ewes who would get huge bags with teats that were too big for the lambs to nurse. The daughter had quads last year and I ended up having to bottle feed the two surviving lambs as they never could get their mouths around her teats. I culled the mother a few years ago and the daughter last year. How big is the bag itself?? I was told that it has something to do with the muscles holding the bag, something that is not uncommon in hogs/pigs.

 

Kathy

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Is the lamb able to nurse off of her teats??

 

Yes, I've seen him nurse several times but it takes a few tries for him to get his mouth around it and hang on. Her bag is large but no larger than the other ewe that just lambed last night (we got a set of twins later in the evening!). We'll keep an eye on him and make sure he's getting enough milk.

 

Jen

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This is called balloon teats or being cow-titted. I consider it a serious fault, and tends to only get worse as the ewe ages. For minor cases where the ewe has a big single or big twins, you might be able to ensure an easier connection by milking the ewe a little bit so the teats aren't so engorged. Now that I've moved to pasture lambing, ewes with this problem are not retained. I haven't been paying attention to it long enough to have an opinion about whether it's passed down to daughters or not.

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I agree with Bill. It seems to only get worse with age. I gave each one of these ewes a second chance for lambing and it was worse the next time around and so off to the sales barn they both went. Even with our small flock I just don't have the time to be trying to milk out the ewe and/or bottle feeding that many lambs.

 

Kathy

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Diane, Eifion is coming here next Friday. I was just contemplating running the sheep up the road to the barn instead of trailering them... The only spot dry enough to drive on is the worst spot to pen!

 

Julie, if you ever want a Cotswold fleece, coloured or white, let me know. I have plenty :rolleyes:

 

I, too, cull ewes with cow-tits (I like that phrase, although one of our dairy cows has "sheep-tits"- they're tiny).

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