T-1 and Counting

Tomorrow we start milking properly. By that I mean no more dry runs, practice runs, one sheep at a time runs or any other type of runs. Tomorrow it's 4 sheep, then the next 4 sheep until we're done and with each week from now until the end of the lambing we will be adding new ewes to the group once their lambs are 30 days old.

We have everything ready to go, we couldn't be more prepared if we tried. Last thing in place was a new stainless steel workbench for the milk room so we have somewhere to fill the bags for freezing. How much milk exactly we expect tomorrow is still something of an unknown variable and considering that volume is really what determines viability, it's hard not knowing. Sure we've done tests with single sheep, but they're all different, that's the factor that at the end of the season determines who we keep and who we say goodbye to. That's not the only factor for sure but it's a big one.

Lambing has been going well. We had one bad day last week where we lost 3 lambs. Their mother just wasn't feeding them andno matter how hard we tried, even down to feeding tubes in the stomachs, they just didn't have the will to live. All were incredibly small when they were born. Their mother's know by instinct, it's uncanny, the ones that won't survive get left. It's nature's way. It's still hard coming to terms with the fact that you just can't save some.

No problem with these little ones though, they are all at the stage now where they are running around like crazy.

So the time is coming. Tomorrow I should have a post reflecting on the first day of 'official' milking. Stay tuned!