Lambing started well and slightly ahead of schedule on 3 of January. It trundled on fine for a while, then took a nosedive, and now we are back to playing the waiting game again.

First things first: with half the ewes lambed at time of writing, we seem to have got the feeding and breeding right. Twin lambs are averaging just over 5kg at birth, singles are over 6kg, and the few triplets have all been around 4.5kg.

I won’t name the merchant we got the feed from, but their 18% supreme ewe loose ration has done the business for us. We are feeding an all-concentrate diet with hay for roughage and, without exceeding the advised levels, the ewes are in good condition and the lambs are a decent size.

In previous years, with similar levels of feeding, the lambs always seemed a bit small. Most twins were born around 4.5kg, which is largely OK, but any issues at all and those below this average were that little bit more likely to fade and die. So, I am happy with the larger lamb who will hopefully move through the weights faster too and be gone out the gate in a shorter time.

Narrow heads

Ah yes, you might say, bigger lambs are great and all, but what about getting them out of the ewe in the first place? Through accident more than design, we used Charollais-Texel rams and a Charollais ram for breeding last July. So far, all lambs have been born with the narrow head of the Charollais and did not present any problem for their dams. Admittedly, most of the ewes are well over 70kg and so have fine big frames for shooting out lambs.

Any ewes that had to be handled either had a lamb coming backwards or were not presenting the lamb’s front feet and head properly. None were handled because the lamb was too big.

Just to keep us on our toes though, we had two ewes reject one of their own lambs on the same evening, another lamb was born with what looked like a pinched nerve in his back and subsequently died, and a fine big Texel-cross ewe surprised us by pretending to lamb but actually prolapsed instead.

Any ewes that had to be handled either had a lamb coming backwards or were not presenting the lamb’s front feet and head properly

One of the rejecter ewes changed her mind again and decided to accept her second lamb after a few days of encouragement in the foster crate. Her friend did not, however, and her rejected lamb never really recovered from the lack of mothering and reduced intake of colostrum. He struggled on in the pets’ enclosure for a few days but was getting weaker instead of stronger and I was not surprised to find him dead one morning when I arrived into the shed.

Lessons learned

Overall, lambing early has been more positive than negative so far. But as ever, we remember what went wrong more than what went right. That is where the lessons are to be learned, I guess.

It has been quiet for a few days now in the shed. We are waiting on the repeat ewes that did not hold to the first service from the rams, but did conceive at second time of asking when they came in heat again, 18 days after the sponges were first removed.

The biggest factor of all for this early lambing trial has been luck with the weather. It has been great in general, notwithstanding a few nights of rain. The first bunch of ewes and their lambs are outside full-time now, having been out by day and in by night for two weeks.

Fingers crossed the feeding, breeding, and luck with the weather will continue to work for us when the repeats start to move through the process in the coming days.