Saturdays are farmer's market days, which means I don't normally get to my sheep chores until the afternoon. Today, thankfully, my intern Callie was able to staff our market stall while I went back to the sheep and moved the ewes and lambs. Everyone had weathered the overnight rain just fine. As we made our second round through the sheep this afternoon, I was especially glad that I'd moved the ewes this morning - the rain came back this afternoon!
While the sheep were bunched up, I was able to catch all of the ewes that haven't lambed yet. Of the seven ewes left to lamb, four are open (unbred). The remaining three look very close. I'm hoping we'll be done with lambing soon!
While raising sheep means much more to me than dollars and cents, I do keep track of our statistics - it's kind of a report card for me. This year, we exposed 125 ewes to the rams, 113 of which were bred. We're pretty pleased with a 90% conception rate. Most of the ewes that did not get bred were maiden ewes. A few of these will get a second chance.
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