Happy New Year!

[EmsoffLambs]

I hope everyone had a great year in 2016. We started the year with a pretty rough lambing season fighting abortions, ending up with only about half the lambs we should have. Nonetheless, we managed to end the year with more winners than ever before. The highlight for me personally was probably watching my son winning Grand at our county fair, a title that had managed to elude us all these years. We made the leap into Dorpers and are enjoying watching how their first lambs are developing. We are grateful and humbled by everyone who trusted our genetics this past year. We couldn't do it without you! Overall it was a great year and we eagerly look forward to new great things in 2017!

What were some of your highlights from last year?

[Polymom]

After our dairy barn burned down in July, 2015, we built my dream sheep barn last winter.  Everything is so much easier with all the lambs in one barn instead  of in several small sheds.  We also bought a sorting system with a tub, chute, tilt cradle for hoof trimming, and a scale.  No more wrestling sheep!  We have a mini fridge and microwave in our heated office so no more bags of milk replacer in the house.  We just got the lamb cameras set up so I can watch them from work.  And we can lamb in the heated office if we need to. I can't wait for lambing this year!

[EmsoffLambs]

I am jealous! What kind of camera did you get? I am wanting to get a wifi camera and have been researching then but have not found one that only streams when viewed.

[Polymom]

We got a Swann with four cameras and a DVR.  We have apps on our phones that we just click on to see what the sheep are up to.  We can also view on our computer or a smart TV.  You will need wifi out in your shed.  We ended up putting in antennas from the house to the shed to send the wifi signal from the house to the shed.  These antennas have to have a clear line of sight in order to work.  The electrician said it was cheaper than running cat 5 cable and would give us a better picture.

[Don Drewry]

I too would like a barn cam.  Told people that was the right X-Mas present but they didn't think so.  :-(

Up to this year our ewes have been extremely consistent.  Pull CIDRs, put ram in next day.  First ewes will lamb 145 days later and be evenly distributed for about 6 days, and then 2 days of less lambs.  Well, they didn't pay attention to the program as lambing should have started yesterday.  Even the ewe that was first to lamb 4 years in a row, and last year missed first place by 4 hours hasn't lambed yet.  Of course, I'm going out of town at the end of this window. :-(