Autumn on the farm
Raising sheep in the Autumn centers around two main activities. Lambing and shearing.
Our flock is divided into two groups. One group lambs in the Autumn and the second group lambs in the Spring. For our Autumn lambs, we like for them to be born in late October, which means we will have put the ram in with those ewes 150 days earlier. The weather in Virginia in October is cooler, but not too cold. The maternity ward of pregnant ewes, as we refer to them, is moved to the paddock nearest the barn which houses a lambing shed. A week or two before we are expecting the first lambs, we bring the pregnant sheep into the lambing shed at night. This allows us to keep a close eye on them, and gives them a protected, dry space in case they lamb in the evening. Every night we check on them at 10 PM. Inside the lambing shed we set up a couple of “jugs” which are 4’x 6’ closed in spaces made out of portable fencing. Any new mom is placed in their own private jug for 24 hours, which helps with mom and baby bonding and keeps the tiny lamb out from under foot of the bigger group. Once they are stable and nursing they go into another paddock which we refer to as the nursery.We separate this group of ewes and lambs from the maternity ward because the newborn lambs are very clever about nursing and will steal milk from any other unsuspecting mom. Most experienced ewes won’t put up with this nonsense as they know to save their milk and more importantly, their colostrum, for their own babies. But younger ewes are more generous and will share their milk with other lambs due to the flood of nurturing hormones impending lambing brings.
The second big event this time of year is shearing. This shearing will be for the lambs that were born the year before. It will be their first shearing, which is wonderful lambswool. Each yearling lamb will have grown their fleece for their first year of life. It will be 4 - 5 inches long and is extremely fine and soft.
Once shearing and lambing are done, the remainder of our Autumn chores center around weighing wool, finding mills to process our wool, and designing our new collection.
