Farm Fresh Blog

It's lambing time again. I had planned to be lambing in November and done by January. Instead, one ewe lambed in mid-November and the others lambed in December and January. And we had two oops breedings from another ram that stretched lambing into January and February.  
 

These Navajo-Churros are hardy sheep so winter lambing isn't really a problem. The problem is sleep. Adorable lambs bouncing around the pens like popcorn make you forget that the shepherd gets very little rest during lambing.  Actual birthing is not the issue. It's the waiting. And the watching.  And the worrying. The large majority of births are uneventful. But that tiny percentage is the part that keeps you up at night. One night my Other Half remembered that he had a Go-Oro camera and set it up over the birthing stall. Voila!  I could lie in bed and check sheep. The problem was that the battery was only good for two hours. 
 

Then Daughter sent us this little gem:

This will be opening up the door to a new level of barn monitoring. The lovely Rowena is one of my oops breedings this year and I look forward to being able to monitor lambing from my warm bed. That's the plan anyway. I'm hoping that this will also give me the peace of mine that all is well when I leave the house because checking in is simply an app on my phone.  I fear that I will need to be careful about who else is viewing the stalls with me, as I wouldn't put it past my Other Half to moon the camera.  Viewers be forewarned! 
 

The bulk of the flock will be lambing in the spring and so I expect this little camera will get quite a workout!