We’ve finished our first round of lambing and the AI Class results are in. Total ewes bred via AI was 34. Total ewes lambing to AI was 9 giving a 26% lambing. However, as everyone knows we had some straw failures and other issues where the ewe did not get proper doses of semen. If I remove those sheep from the group there were 28 ewes who got a full set of inseminations. That would make the lambing percentage 32%. Either is an acceptable result for lambing to frozen semen especially for novice people doing the work. The class may find it interesting that none of the ewes that either Dr. Purdy or I inseminated lambed to the AI.

The total of lambs produced was 15 live lambs and 1 huge stillborn from a first time ewe. The stillborn lamb weighed 8.69 pounds. Normal for our flock and breed is 7 to 7.5 pounds. We have had 2 sets of triplets. There are 10 ram lambs and 5 ewe lambs.

The backup lambing could start any day now. On the good side it looks like all of the ewes except perhaps one are pregnant.