Early Lambs and Early Crutching
There was a new lamb on 24 January (not sure who the mum is) and Original Mum had a lamb on 12 February. I think there was also another lamb but it was lost. Because of Arnie, I can't get close enough to the new lambs and mums to figure out who is who. Arnie is certainly doing his job. I just hope he doesn't wear out the ewes giving them lambs seven months after they lambed last time.
On 4 March when moving the sheep I noticed that one had flystrike near the front leg (Rosie, I think). Also, Original Mum was very weak and I suspected she had worms (or maybe just old and worn out feeding her lamb). So, we had the sheep crutched the following Friday. We marked the boy lamb and ringed both lamb's tails. I haven't purchased this year's coloured tags, so I will tag them at shearing. Also when shearing I will ask the shearer's advice on which lambs from last year can be classed as merino. Some of them are 7/8 merino by birth but their wool may be good enough to be classed as merino. I will then identify them with a blue tag for ease of sorting fleeces at shearing in future, and also to help decide which ones to sell or eat.
I didn't remember to take photos at crutching time. Steve took a good close up of Arnie, so I have included that.