Lambing time is here again. We thought we would start earlier this year. Big mistake in light of the abnormally cold weather here. It was about -15C last night and has been more or less the same, plus frequent snowstorms for the last two weeks and is expected to last until at least the middle of March.
Actually, we have not had a big problem with hypothermic lambs. So far, we have not run out of barn space or "jugs", but if the cold weather continues we may have a problem with this. We do have a couple of larger, group pens which will help with the numbers as lambs and ewes from the jugs can progress to these after a day or two. I hope the weather warms up in the next couple of weeks so these sheep can be put back outside in the loafing 3-sided shelter. They will still be out of the snow.

 Our main difficulties have been with first time young mothers and the old girls (8 years and older, who really should have been culled earlier) The reason we have a lot of young ewes and older ones is our own fault, as we sold a lot of breeding stock last year at good prices, so we could not refuse. Now we have to build up our flock again. Anyway, most of the ewes so far have had singles so we are only batting 100 percent so far instead to the usual 150 percent. It might also be due to the fact that many of our ewes are now Dorper/Katahdin crosses. Purebred Katahdins do tend to have a higher rate of twins and triplets.  There is still time to improve our percentage as we are still less than a third of the way through the lambing season.
For more information on cold weather shed lambing, see this article:  http://www.premier1supplies.com/sheep-guide/2013/01/shed-lambing/?source=newslettersheep&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=March-03-sheep