Lamb, Calf Update

(The information below is copied and pasted from an email from the KCF Agriculture Mgr, Mark Johnson to the Ag & Ag Volunteer staff)

We have one more ewe due to lamb. She is due in mid March. It is a ewe that has had some prolapse problems so we will keep our fingers crossed. We have 18 lambs on the ground right now, out of the 11 ewes that have given birth. We are at 163% and the average is about a 150% lamb crop. We have lost a few lambs, mostly due to the high number of triplets and quads. We have had a disproportionate number of those types of births. Please do not allow visitors to bottle feed the lambs. (Remember Timmy?) We have also had a visitor that insists that she and her granddaughter be allowed into the sheep pens to play with and chase the lambs. She indicated that they had been allowed to do that on a previous weekend this year. It is true that we have encouraged staff and Ag volunteers to TAKE people into the sheep pens to view the new born lambs that were in the lambing pens. Visitors are only allowed into the livestock pens under the supervision of staff or Ag volunteers. The only time that is done presently is to allow visitors to get up close to new born lambs that are in the lambing pens. We don’t have any ewes in lambing pens at the moment. At no time are visitors allowed to chase or harass the farm animals.
Forever Lady, KCF’s Angus cow delivered an 87 lb bull calf on the afternoon of March 3. Both appear to be doing fine. That is a little earlier than expected, but that has been the pattern for that cow. This Angus cow is not as aggressive as Ida, the older Angus cow.