By Joyce Weaver

 Recently, I awoke to a light dusting of snow, which is the first snow we have had in Indiana in the past several weeks. I was prepared in advance and had my little Kubota tractor with front snow blade attached parked near the back door to plow out paths to the barn if needed. 

Other than the severely cold weather we had beginning December 23 when we were “blessed” with high winds, below freezing temperatures and a windchill of -30 to -50 degrees, we have had a rather mild winter. 

During that recent severe cold spell, I had pipes under the house freeze, and when it warmed up I had water gushing forth from the broken pipes. That necessitated calling a plumber who was very busy taking care of other people with broken water pipes. Then an outdoor water hydrant that I have used to water sheep decided to break and water was spewing up out of the ground and pouring down the driveway in a constant flow. That also needed to be dug up and fixed. A few days later another outdoor water hydrant on the south side of Barn 1 split open where the handle meets the pipe. It too was spewing water on the ground. No rubber hoses were attached to the hydrants.

Luckily, I have a very talented neighbor who kindly dug it up and a new hydrant was installed. So far so good. I have lived here 25 years and this is the first winter I have ever experienced so many water pipe breaking issues. Luckily during this period no lambs were being born.

When I went to the barn a few days before writing this column, I was met by a new mama and her set of twin lambs. Ewe #11377 was born in 2017 and this makes her sixth set of twins. She is an excellent ewe, has never needed assistance in lambing, calm disposition and easy to handle. “takes care of everything herself.” These are notes from her record card. I keep records and photos on all my sheep. It helps make wise decisions regarding what lines to keep in the flock and which ewes to cull. 

When I first started raising sheep I used to panic and thought I needed to be present for every delivery. Now I have been reaping the benefits of keeping records on my flock and usually find ewes waiting for me with their standing newborn lambs that they have taken care of themselves and all I have to do is put the family in a pen and feed them, eartag, deworm mama, etc. 

I see several other ewes are developing udders in the Barn 1 group so I expect I will be pretty busy soon collecting new little families and getting them into their lambing jugs. Keep warm and happy lambing!

lambjoyw@gmail.com