Thursday, January 17, 2013

Getting Ready for lambing


The time for lambing is getting closer, we should start around the second week in February so we are starting to get the girls ready. They are getting their hooves trimmed and a hair cut, as you can see BT is showing her new do.
This is called crotching out and usually the whole of the rear is sheared ,  even over the tail, but for these girls I do as little as we can get away with as it is a little cold at the moment and I wouldn't want to walk around without a coat.
 We crotch out for two reasons the first is so we can easily see what is going on and if any complications occur we are not fighting around  the wool,
The second is once the lambs are born they can find mama's teats easily and we can see that they are nursing properly.
Tinkerbell is a little shy about showing her do.




 

Dave has also been constructing a temporary chicken run inside our big chicken run so that the young hens can go out.  I have been opening the little door in the back of the coop since Monday but not one of them is brave enough to go out yet.




You can see how big they are now and it is so nice to see the different breeds and how their feather markings are changing
The pure whites are white rocks
The brown's are red stars
The dark with grey necks are wyandots
and the all black are Austrolops.