The lambs are feeling more "lambitious". Scaling straw bales is their newest challenge. Each morning while we're cleaning the barn they compete to see who's king of the straw bale. After breakfast, we send everyone out into the pasture for the day, except for the triplets, and Mistral who likes to hang out with the triplets. And Thalia and little Zap, who is so much smaller than the rest and still catching on to life in the barn. The pack of lambs tags along with Crackerjack in the field. He's the lamb nanny. While it's been crazy windy here over
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Monthly Archives April 2010
Morning Chores!
Some of the lambs are getting a little tubby. Time to adjust the spacing on the creep panel. Holly had some help from Verbena's triplets: Georgia, Garamond and Gigi. copyright 2010. Barbara Parry. All rights reserved. Feel free to share a link to this website. Please do not take content or images from this website without my explicit written permission. Thank you.
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Lunch with Mistral – Video
Here's an update on Mistral. As you can see from today's video, she's getting leggy and also filling out quite a bit. In the barn, she's fitting in well with the other lambs, racing and exploring the pasture. I saw her sampling hay at dinnertime yesterday, a very good sign that she's on the right path. It's not unusual for bottle lambs to be very keyed in to people but it's been years since I've had a lamb this imprinted on me. I think spending her first night in my bed may have had something to do with it. She
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Lambed Out! Celebration GiveAway
We're all resting after a long journey . . . . . . and breathing a huge sigh of relief this morning. Our last lamb of the season arrived yesterday evening. Thalia delivered the sleepy ram lamb pictured above just as I was heading to the barn for Mistral's bedtime bottle feeding. It was really considerate of her to lamb before I went to bed for the night. Since he is our grand finale of lambing 2010, I've named him Zapfino – "Zap" for short. He had thirty two curious little noses poking through the slats of his pen to
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Observations: Lambs & Ewes
I've been observing the lambs as their "personalities" emerge. It's always interesting to see which ones are most inquisitive, the ones who are always tugging on the leg of my jeans while I fill buckets or feed the bottle lambs. Not surprising that some of the most friendly lambs are out of my most gregarious ewes. Tupelo's ewe-ling, Arial, demanded some chin scratching as I was walking the yard this afternoon. When I stopped to visit, her momma came over for her share. And so I enjoyed a pleasant moment with both of them, (above). Not all lambs are
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Video – Morning Chores!
When I have recovered from sleep deficit and cogent enough to write in coherent sentences I promise a longer post about the activities of the past week. As you can see the lambs are growing and thriving. As you watch this video it's easy to spot the youngest lambs and also the more mature members of the lamb flock. I shot this while the mothers were dining this morning. The lambs can't wait for me to open the barn door so they can race around the yard. Mistral is still very much imprinted on me but is interacting more and
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More Lamb Racing Footage
We've sent the lambs outdoors for the first time this week and this morning they couldn't get enough of it, racing in and out of the barn while the mommas had breakfast. Hysterical. Captured this moment to share with you. BTW – we're still waiting for Thalia's lambs to arrive. But everyone else looks great. copyright 2010. Barbara Parry. All rights reserved. Feel free to share a link to this website. Please do not take content or images from this website without my explicit written permission. Thank you.
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Sunday’s Lambs
Thought you might enjoy some Sunday visitors. One of latest arrivals.Meet Nimbus, Star's ewe lamb. And this is Georgia, one of Verbena's triplets. She's joined the bottle lamb club and is quite intense whenever I show up in the barn.But what a face. Could her eyes be any wider? copyright 2010. Barbara Parry. All rights reserved. Feel free to share a link to this website. Please do not take content or images from this website without my explicit written permission. Thank you.
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Video – The Lamb-pede!
The lambs were having a blast while I fed the ewes this afternoon. I recorded the funniest lamb-pede with my iphone – so the format is tiny but still cute and I thought you would enjoy seeing it. This was Mistral’s first lamb race and I am elated to see her playing along with the other lambs. It’s important that she gets being a sheep, since she’s spending so much time indoors with me. Learning to flock is a big step in the right direction. Enjoy!
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Friday GiveAways & Studio Lamb
A few scenes from my morning: I've named Helena's black ewe lamb "Mistral" (one of yesterday's suggestions, thank you!). She spent her 4th night indoors, after making new friends in the barn yesterday. Following her midnight bottle feeding I brought her back to the studio with me as I did not want to return to the barn for the 2 & 4 a.m. feedings. She doesn't stay in her basket anymore, wants to sleep on the floor beside the bed with her head tucked under the bedskirt. I put a woolen blanket there for her and she has
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