Hi to all our Lamb Lovers,
The lambs have started to arrive here at Lauriston. As mentioned in the last post we are expecting 220+ lambs this year and on Aug 28th the first set were born. A delightful pair of little white guys with wiggly tails.
Once the dam burst (literally with some of the Mum's with twins) we are seeing new borns every morning on our rounds. A really rough count has us with 45 already.
We also welcomed a new Alpaca to work with Eric (our remaining Alpaca) in guarding the flock. We received some excellent ideas for his name, thank you to all that gave it some thought. In the end we went with Elmore, mainly because the name suited this shaggy and dorky looking animal, but also because Elmore is close to Rochester in Central Vic and our Alpaca that died from snake bite this year was called Rochester. A big thank you to Jumbo Jeffries who suggested the name.
Whilst Tracey and I will see a few ewes giving birth during the day, over 80% of lambs will be born in the early hours around dawn. Tracey and I do a quiet walk around the flock each morning to check on them and help out if anyone appears to be having trouble. So far we've only had to pull one set of twins out.
Lambs grow at a rapid rate in the first 100 days, putting on over 2 kilos a week until they weigh around 30kgs. Mum's milk is vital for this growth, and green grass is vital for producing good milk. Aside from milk, lambs also start eating grass after only a few days, so paddocks full of grass and clover are the key ingredient for both ewes and lambs. We had very poor rainfall in Autumn so our paddocks didn't grow before the Winter cold set in and stopped anything growing. Recently we have had excellent rain, we now need sunshine to warm the ground and grow the grass. We are still feeding out the hay we gathered last year but is nearly all gone. It will be just in time if our grass grows in the next 4 or 5 weeks. Keep your fingers crossed for some sunny Spring weather.
We are still lighting the fire every night here at Lauriston, but are getting a few days where the sun shines and the temperature creeps above 15 degrees. On those days you can almost see the grass growing. Once the football season is over we will no doubt be seeing a few more house guests, it would be great to see you for a visit.
Tracey and Clive
Lamb Lovers
Spot Elmore the new Alpaca, clearly he has settled in well, maybe a bit too well for a herd guard!
It's a Rams Life...
