Thursday, March 27, 2008

No more lambs now for a few days, but the maple sap is dripping into the buckets. The snow is finally starting to melt.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Happy Customer


One of my customers is now a believer in the ease of lambing by Katahdins. He said he just went out to the lambing area and there the lambs were! No help required. He called yesterday requesting some more ewes. He was also impressed by the fact that he could easily tell which ewes were due immently by looking at the softening of back end, and the size of the udder.

The calls are also coming in from potential new customers requesting weaned ewe lambs.

The lambs are all doing fine including these spoiled suffolk cross triplets. They are still under the heat lamp. The mother is a full Katahdin.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Lambing

We have just started lambing 3 days ago. It is a pleasant surprise as according to the calendar, April 02 is the first lambing date. The 2 and 3 day lambs are doing just fine in this -15 overnight weather.

We keep our newborn lambs in lambing pens in the barn for a day or two, then they go into a larger outdoor area where there are round bale self feeders and automatic waterers. The llamas are enjoying their new friends.

The trees around our backyard are just tapped and the maple sap was running yesterday for the first time this year. Snowing-again-today!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Benefits of Katahdin Sheep

Katahdin hair sheep are a new breed of low maintenance meat sheep. They require no shearing, no docking of tails, no crotching for lambing. The size varies frm 120 lbs. to 170 lbs for ewes and 150 lbs. to 250 lbs. for rams.

The flavour is mild without the lanolin influence so the age of lambs can be extended without losing the flavour. The chlorestrol is low about 44 vs about 75 for average lamb.