Talk about “right to the wire”. The last ram lamb of 2018 was born during an earthquake just as the New Years Eve fireworks started to show.

Let’s recap – We artificially inseminated 4 ewes. We got 9 lambs, 4 girls and 5 boys, every one of them is healthy and beautiful. This process allowed us to bring genetics to Alaska from UK and New Zealand that will continue to improve our wool crop.

Bridget gave us triplets on Christmas Day. Bridget is not a big sheep, she is a 3.5 yr old Cormo/Polypay and looked like she was only a little bit pregnant. She was inseminated with Corriedale and gave us 2 girls and a boy – Stella, Bella, and Jingles.

Bella and Jingles weighed over 8.5 lbs each but Stella was only 6.3. Don’t let her size fool you, this mighty mouse can hold her own against her big brother when it comes to the buffet line 😉

Stella (above) and Bella (below) take turns sleeping in the food pan.

The next morning Latte gave us twin rams. Latte is a mystery. We were told she is Romney/Rambouillet but her previous owner is deceased and his notes are lost.

When the vet checked motility in the Corriedale straw for Bridget she was quite concerned about the very low numbers visible under the microscope so we opted to add a straw of Romney to the Corriedale and see what happens. As such, I am not certain who the father of these two actually is.

Either way, these are some well built boys and the genes are there for some really excellent fleeces. We have dubbed them Star-Lord and Groot 🙂

Amanda made us wait. And wait. And wait. She was huge and uncomfortable so I finally broke down and took her for a walk. I figured it works for humans so it couldn’t hurt. Well it worked. Saturday morning she surprised us with Triplets!!

Amanda is a purebred American Teeswater. However, when I was shopping, I couldn’t locate any Teeswater semen so I got some Wensleydale instead. They are both longwools and will give luscious long locks.

Amanda’s triplets are also 2 girls and a boy – Jack, Janet, and Chrissy.

Jack has tighter curls. Janet and Chrissy already have some length to their locks.

At this point we began to wonder if Alice was gonna do anything at all. She didn’t really look pregnant and she didn’t have much of an udder. I began to doubt if she was still pregnant. The vet came to see her and both of us were pretty convinced she was not. We did draw a blood sample to send for testing just to be sure.

Alice is another mystery sheep from the Romney/Rambouillet flock with no notes about actual breeding. So I decided to order some Romney for her.

I have always said Alice is a stealth lamber. She is an experienced ewe who is an excellent mom but I can never guess when she will lamb. She never looks or acts pregnant. Lambs just magically appear.

This year was no different. After we both wrote her off last night she had a large dinner and drank plenty of water. Then today she delivers a 13 lb ram lamb.

He was so big she needed a little help but both had a healthy dinner tonight and will hopefully get some rest after the fireworks subside.

This guy doesn’t have a name yet, but it might need to be Quake since we were having a 5.0 while he was being delivered. We failed to notice the quake, luckily all our friends on Facebook posted about it. Such is life on the farm.