Yesterday I received this wonderful tip from one of the wonderful Fellowship of the Farmy.
I am throwing my two cents worth of lambing prediction for your consideration. I go by the udder size to predict the number of weeks or days until lambing. My sheep hate my exploring hand as I unceremoniously, but gently reach down to inspect first visually then with my hand. So here it is: a little swelling around the teats predicts 6 weeks, an udder starting to fill my cupped hand (small hand) about 4 weeks, overflowing my hand a bit is 3 weeks. The actual day is typical of the books with a tight udder, protruding teats, swollen vulva etc. I hope this helps, and that you have an uneventful lambing.
Aha! I thought. So out I went for a chat with Meadow. She is two years old and definitely pregnant. The result of our ..um.. meeting is that I think she is due to lamb in about three weeks, maybe a little over. So I had better get busy with the baby clothes. (lambs coats.. it will be cold). How exciting. Though she is still making that low grunt at odd times, which worries me, I hope they are ok in there.
Minty had nothing to offer. (I know how she feels) Not even a mini champagne glass.
Mama has been wearing a size c cup since she arrived so I think this rule of thumb would work best with the young ones. I am pleased. Thank you R.
It blew like hell itself today, my face is officially sandblasted with flying snow so I did not get to see Sheila. Yesterday the ice on the roads had the big red truck gently sliding right out of control. So I am still waiting. At least she is safe and well where she is. I don’t know why I am such a wort for the worrying.
You do remember that Belle the Kunekune Sow is due to farrow on Feb 1st!
The seed chest is out. John has forbidden me from throwing any seed catalogues out though why he needs that many I have no idea. But the greenhouse is still waiting for reasonable weather to continue the building. 
Oh, and in answer to your questions: MY favourite seed catalogue is The Sandhill Preservation Center, from Calamus in Iowa. It is printed on newsprint paper in black and white with no sexy fonts or breathless descriptions, no pictures of cute kids with big pumpkins and no shiny pages or posh promises. They are very low tech, no website. The seeds come as generous portions in little envelopes with the name of the plant and no directions. They expect you to know what you are ordering and what to do with it. They do not promise to answer the phone and do not deal with emails when they are busy. “Just send in your order and wait your turn in line” they say. I love this about them.
They are dedicated to preserving NON GM heirloom vegetables and flowers. They are honest, good and grumpy. I just love it. I fill out their old fashioned paper form and send them a cheque in the post. They have excellent sweet potatoes too. They breed heirloom and endangered old breed chickens, turkeys, ducks and bantams so I will also order my new chickens from them this year, I am getting a straight run of Orpington chooks. I am also buying a few Buff Orpington ducks to waddle about. Just for continuity.
So I had better get busy and send in my order!
It snowed again last night, enough to tidy the place up a bit.
I am writing a proper book now based on the farm blog. I shall tell you about it tomorrow, I am going to need your help choosing the best posts. I am starting with winter. It is an exciting project and keeping me busy.
Have a lovely day.
Your friend on the farm,
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
68 responses to “How to tell when your ewe is due.”
I find myself inexplicably but oddly fond of grumpy people. I think I like the honesty – no smarmy niceness, just “shut up and let us do our job”. Looking forward to baby lambs, how exciting! 🙂
When we first started with sheep, we lambed in Jan and Feb, too. Probably because that is when everybody else did. Then we decided that helping a ewe in the middle of a frozen night or them having a lamb In a blizzard was not our style. From then on we lambed in Spring….just like all the other baby animals. Plenty of green grass for the ewes and warm days and sunshine for the lambs. Just as nature intended. Works for us. We also had ewes that never let their bag swell until after birthing lambs. Most inconsiderate of them, I thought.
Please put me on the book list, too. A signed copy would be nice.
What an exciting writing project to sustain you in the winter. I’ve been thinking for some time what a great book you could make out of your blog posts. I particularly like the funny ones, and the ones that give rise to a story, or feature interesting characters. Go for the extremes of birth and death, euphoria and despair. Embrace all seasons, both inner and outer. It will be a fabulous book!
I like the sound of your seed catalogue people. We have a heritage seed company here too, and I enjoy buying their brown paper envelopes of seeds, no pretty pictures and no fuss, but great results.
Dear Celia, I came to your blog via another for a recipe a few weeks ago. After a couple of reads decided to stay, l look forward to your posts over my fruit & toast in the morning & a great contrast to the dry hot hot heat of Adelaide South Australia at the moment! We had the dubious honor of being the hottest place in the world a week or so ago & on the way to it again! I’m involved in Community Gardens here & we do a lot of seed saving & swapping a great way to preserve heirloom varieties, cheers jj
welcome jjordan, wow, the hottest place in the world is a HOT place to be! Community gardens sound great.. love that you are out there reading! c
Apologies Cecilia, I’ve spelt your name wrong above, cheers jj
http://www.woolover.co.nz/lambcov.html
These are the covers you want. Plastic ones make condensation which then freezes making the lamb colder.
My neighbours (who each have 70+years sheep farming experience) swear by them.
My 2c worth. Hope it helps.
Great to begin a new week with such an uplifting post! And I can just feel spring coming what with lambs and the kunekune and that box of seeds . . .days pass so quickly!! Kate and I here in Oz very much get our heritage seeds from the same place: well Diggers does have small colour photos on a thin recycled paper catalogue, but it is one of the most exciting books to take to bed and dream 🙂 ! Your book – about time, Milady . . I won’t even mention something called’ time limits’ 😀 !!!
Other than the udder research, you can tell when a ewe is close to lambing (or a goat) by feeling regularly just near the base of their tail where it meets the body. The ligaments there get very soft and rubbery when they are ready to drop their lambs. It’s amazing! You should feel your un-pregnant girls and compare.
[…] seeing the way Celi and her husband store their seeds in this post, I realized that I have a very similar set of Ikea drawers. They’ve been filled with various […]
Right away I am going away to do my breakfast,
later than having myy breakfast coming over again to read additiinal news.