The Fishers ewes are due 48 lambs this spring!
We currently have 25 ewes that are pregnant and are due to birth their lambs in April. The ewes conceived in November and are pregnant for five months. They can only conceive as the days begin to shorten in September, because their reproductive systems are sensitive to the number of daylight hours.
Earlier this month, all our ewes had a pregnancy ultrasound scan. This is done to determine how many lambs we are expecting at Fishers Farm. We are very excited that the sheep are expecting 4 lots of triplets, 15 lots of twins and 6 single lambs. You can see a very clear image below of a lamb in its mummy’s tummy.
A coloured spray is put onto the middle of the ewes back, so we know how many lambs they are carrying. The Fishers ewes that have a green mark on their back, are expecting twins, ewes with red are expecting triplets and yellow is for a single lamb. You may also be able to see a fainter colour on their bottoms; this is the mark left by the ram when he served them in November. The ram wears a ‘raddle’ with a special crayon in it that colours a ewe each time she is mated.
Come along and see our ewes in The Animal Encounters Barn, where they are staying until they give birth. If you come to visit our pregnant ewes, you will see that there is a round feed block in a rack in their pen. The ewes are free to nibble on this whenever they choose, this keeps them in tip top condition for when they lamb in April.
Did you know? There are 60 different breeds of sheep in the UK! Hill breeds such as the Scottish Blackface, residing on remote uplands, usually give birth to a single lamb and have excellent mothering abilities. Lowland breeds such as the Suffolk and Southdown often have twins or triplets.
