New life on the hill

Spring finally seems to have arrived and with if new life on the farm is beginning to arrive.

I decided not to tup our sheep last year as we never send our sheep to the mart and I didn't really want anymore, plus I didn't want lambing to clash with the Scottish Alpaca Show that we'd were going to attend (more on that another night).  

I did make an exception for my three Wensleydale ewes though, Drizzle, Parnie and Mist.  I din't think any of them were actually pregnant and in typical sheep style we sadly lost Mist a couple of months ago for no apparent reason!  Anyway it turned out that Drizzle was indeed pregnant and surprised me with a very cute, in an ugly sort of way, tup lamb who Paul named Gromit after is dad Wallace!

Despite only having one lamb this year he is causing plenty of work (not that I'm complaining, I love him!).  Initially his mum had no milk and wasn't very interested in him.  Having not been expecting any lambs I didn't have any colostrum (and it was Sunday) so he started off on alpaca colostrum until I managed to get some from a friend, Sam at West Barn Pygmy Goats who also has a few pet sheep.

I thought Gromit was just a bit of a dopey weak lamb but then realised that he couldn't see, the poor little man has very little if any sight.  As he has grown his front legs have become very bent too, this poor little man is in special care, on a course of antibiotics and vitamin injections in the hope that we can salvage at least some sight and splinted legs to try and stop them from getting worse and hopefully straightening them.

Next to arrive 24 hours later was a very sweet little angora goat who we have named Calico.  Again, just like all my angora births assistance was required when April presented a head and no feet!  Thankfully there was plenty of room and the gorgeous little kid was safely delivered.

I have also been hatching some of our goose eggs, I'd put 8 in the incubator but only 6 were fertile.  I had been told by a number of people that geese were particularly difficult to hatch so I wasn't too hopeful for much success.  The first one pipped and made very little progress and eventually needed help as did the second.  Sadly the other 4 didn't manage to hatch, but these two are doing just great and are now 4 and 5 days old and growing so fast.

On the alpaca front Marne is now on 353 days, but having gone 410 with Oscar we could still have a bit of a wait.  She doesn't really have much signs of milk yet either but she had none last time so that isn't much help!

Andromeda is as wide as a house so hopefully she wont have too much longer to go, she's on 352 days so is well over our herd average and not knowing how long she went with Nelson two years ago who knows what sort of gestation she likes.