An new lambs and fresh milk will be on the farm, Our first lambs will be coming by the end of the month, and while most of our girls are getting a bit wide, some of them are looking downright huge.. both a good and bad thing.. I like the numbers that twins bring, but it means less milk for me, I have a couple really milky girls that can easily produce enough for triples that I know that I can get a bit of milk from regardless but I really liked this year when my one girl gave me a nice big ram lamb and I was able to get alot more milk from her because of it.

Its worth noting that I would not allow my girls to breed naturally and have their lambs when they want to if I didn’t have a good barn, I have read and will agree that without a good hay supply, it would not be a good idea to lamb out in winter, most of my girls will go in late Jan or Feb, but one or two will lamb out late Dec/Early Jan and one will lamb out late, with her little one normally coming in March.

One year, I did listen to advice that it was “not the way it was done” to lamb out in the cold and held back the breeding to lamb in spring and it was the only year I had real issues with lamb health, the lambs were slower to grow, had to be wormed more  and I lost a couple at a few weeks old..

While each of us need to figure out what works for our area’s and our farms, I was interesting as I was talking and getting help from my goat girls on the lambs and they all said.. why did you move your lambing date, and I explained that I had been “talked” into a spring lambing, raither then a late winter lambing, and then they asked a very interesting question.. who and where had the advice come from.. as they all understood why I was having more issues as were we live spring comes early and all the issues that come with wet ground come with it. All my goat ladies kid out when the ground is frozen, so that when the little ones are ready to handle and grow on the fresh grass as spring arrives, raither then kidding out in spring itself..

For me at least it works and I will keep doing what seems to give my girls and their lambs the best start, the best health and good growth rates.