Category: Sheep Care

I often get questions about my barn and lambing pens setup here at Melwood Farm. I remember when I started with sheep several years ago, I had lots of questions too! This post should help explain how I choose to manage lambing season.

The Barn

The barn is 32 feet long and 24 feet wide. If you want to build a barn, trust me on this: make it bigger than you think you will need! I added a 16-foot open lean-to attached to one long side, under which I installed our chute and tilt table. The front sliding door is 8′ wide, and the back sliding door is 4′ wide. There is a man door on one long side between the barn wall and lean-to. The floor is about 3 inches of lime sand, which is an excellent material for a sheep barn. It drains well while creating a semi-solid surface that is good for their feet. Cleanup is a breeze using a rake to pull soiled bedding to a pile, then scoop it into the wheelbarrow or tractor front loader to take to the compost heap.

I sectioned off one 8×32 side of the interior using livestock panels, a 3′ walk-thru gate, and a homemade 8′ hay feeder. This area is great for storing square bales of hay and straw, various feeds, and a cabinet for medications, supplements, and tools.

In previous years, I fed hay inside the barn using the 8′ hay feeder and by placing a round bale in one corner of the barn. I have since discontinued this practice because the ewes spent a lot of time inside the barn. I now feed hay outside in either the barnyard/sacrifice paddock or as part of a bale grazing system on a targeted paddock using a collapsible bale feeder.

The Lambing Pens

On the opposite side of the barn, I have seven lambing pens, sometimes called jugs or bonding pens. I set them up well before lambing begins so they are ready to use and stay clean. Until this year, all but two of the jugs were 4′ x 4′, which is a good size for an average St. Croix ewe and her single or twin lambs. However, about half my ewes are in the habit of producing triplets, so the two jugs that I had reserved for this purpose at 4′ x 6′ are insufficient. My jugs are now 4’x5′, with two still at 4’x6′. I use the two largest jugs for my Katahdin and crossbred ewes or any that need penned for longer than 48 hours.

The pens can be constructed from cut pieces of sheep panels, which have 4″ x 4″ openings rather than the larger openings on standard livestock panels. If sticking with the 4’x4′ jugs, cut each 16′ x 4′ panel into 3′ lengths. Using screw eyes and wire or twine, attach the side panels to the wallboards of the barn. You can create gate hinges using these wire panel connector hinges and use spring snap carabiners to lock the gates closed. Another option is to build jug panels out of 1″x4″ lumber so that you can make them the size you wish.

Each pen has a flat-backed water bucket, a feed tray, and a hay-bag. I prefer straw over other bedding materials. It is easy to clean out and keeps the lambs warmer than shavings or crushed cob. The pens aren’t fancy, but they do get the job done!

How I Use the Barn and Pens

My sheep have access to the barn and lean-to during the winter months and lambing season, and can enter and leave as they wish. They rarely have access to the barn outside of winter months, except when I’m sorting, weaning, or performing other flock work. During lambing seasons, I do not keep the expecting ewes or new families locked in the barn.  The ewes lamb on pasture with only a few that choose to enter the barn to do so. Outside of lambing season, I store the panels by hanging them on hooks in the barn.

How I Move the New Family into the Lambing Pens

Some may wonder how to get the ewe and newborn lambs into a pen if they lamb outside. After the ewe cleans and nurses the newborn lambs, I bring them into a lambing jug. I wait for her to clean and nurse to reduce the chances of interrupting the bonding process and to keep most of the birthing mess outside the barn. Most ewes are easy to bring in by picking up the lambs, carrying them low at my sides, and walking slowly to the pen. The ewe follows her lambs in most cases. Sometimes, nervous ewes take a bit more finesse, but the process is much the same. If the ewe gets confused and wanders away, I just set the lambs down for a moment. They cry out, and the ewe comes running back to sniff them. I then resume the trip to the barn.

How Long do They Stay in the Pens?

Most new families stay in the pen for 24 hours or less, but at least overnight. The morning/day after the birth, I weigh, tag, and record the new lambs. This part of the process is vital to measuring performance and managing registration records. Time spent in the pen also gives me the opportunity to observe them to make sure the ewe is mothering well and producing enough milk.

I often keep triplets in the pen an extra day because in many cases, one of the lambs is smaller than the other two. That smaller lamb often needs an extra day to build up strength to keep up with its larger siblings. That extra day also helps me determine if the ewe can produce enough milk for all three lambs. If in doubt, I keep them in a bit longer to supplement with bottle feeding and then decide whether or not to pull one of the lambs.

Does Everyone Need a Barn and Lambing Pens?

Not everyone uses a barn or lambing pens. In fact, I didn’t have a barn for my first two lambing seasons and made it through! Some have very small flocks (as I once did) so it’s easy to keep up with who is who. I had a rough time catching little lambs only a few days old to tag them in my first year, so jugging the families immediately works best for me.

Some have extra help, are quick to catch newborn lambs and perform all their tagging and record keeping on the pasture, or are skilled at sorting families later. Others don’t do any record keeping because pedigrees and individual record keeping are unimportant in their model.

Having a barn available allows me to lamb in winter months. If I didn’t have a barn, I would limit lambing to April-November to avoid lamb hypothermia. Many producers choose the lower input approach of lambing only in warm seasons on pasture, and never need a barn. Whichever method you choose, just remember that your management style needs to align with your budget, environment, and flock goals.

There’s a lot of good, complete information on lambing available. At Shasta Ranch, we found information from Ontario Canada’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, to be concise and helpful. The 3 documents below take you through lambing and caring for the lamb – and you can ignore the part about docking tails. Tail docking isn’t part of the breed standard for St. Croix sheep. The haired tail doesn’t accumulate manure or body fluids the way woolly tails can so fly strike is far less of an issue.

Assisting the Ewe at Lambing
Care of the Newborn Lamb
Hypothermia in the Newborn Lamb

Clipping

Some experienced shepherds have shared helpful tips learned over the years as well. If the lamb has a long or wet umbilical cord, or one that is still oozing blood, dental floss is a clean, easily available ‘string’ to have in your lambing kit. Tie the cord off a short distance from the body (2-3”), tightly enough to stop any oozing of blood, but not so tight that the dental floss cuts the cord off at the tie. Clip the cord and the ends of the floss just beyond the tie.

Dipping

Cords, tied and cut, or already short and beginning to dry, should be dipped in antiseptic solution to prevent ‘navel ill’ or ‘joint ill’ – a bacterial infection that enters through the navel, and into the body, making a young lamb very ill, often with leg joint swelling and pain. A common disinfectant is 7% Iodine. It kills bacteria quickly, and after it dries, forms a protective barrier, offering some residual antiseptic protection. But 7% iodine can be hard to find due to regulations on its sale. It is also irritating to the skin around the navel, causing more skin openings for bacteria to invade. It can be messy to use, too.

For something more available, less irritating to lamb skin, less messy, and similarly effective at disinfecting the navel, research on calves gives some ideas. The most commonly available is 2% chlorhexidine, a disinfectant found to be as effective as 7% iodine. The downside is that it may not assist with drying the cord as much as iodine does. For more information, see Navel Dips for Lambs and Kids.

Good luck with your lambing. It is one of the best parts of raising sheep or one of the hardest, depending on how things go, but definitely one of the most exciting!

Lambing can be such an exciting time on Trillium Family Farms, but it can also be stressful. This is especially true if it is your first lambing season. As we head into our third lambing season, I am incredibly
grateful to other shepherds’ willingness to answer questions.

Since our first lambing season, we have learned many things that may help other beginners. The first is that successful lambing begins before you even see those hooves. Providing adequate nutrition to mom before she gives birth allows for the mom to not only produce good quality colostrum, but also helps to make sure the lambs are strong and healthy at birth. On our farm, we start feeding barley fodder and grain 4 weeks prior to due dates.

During this time, we also give CD/T vaccines to the ewes and start preparing our lambing tote. Lambing totes look different for different farmers, but we make sure ours includes gloves (both nitrile and OB), lubricant, bottles and nipples, lamb sweaters in case its cold, trash bags, betadine, scissors, Nutri-drench, old towels, and chlorhexidine to disinfect gloves. We also verify that we have colostrum and milk replacer in the freezer, just in case.

About a week before we expect our lambs, we set up our lambing pens/bonding jugs. We lime the stalls and spread new bedding. Each pen gets hanging hay feeders, grain feeders and waterers. It’s important to remember to keep water up, as young lambs can drown in buckets on the ground.

Once lambs are born, if their umbilical cord is long and dragging, we trim it a bit and dip it in betadine. If the cord is short, we usually just leave it be. Ewes and their lambs remain in these bonding pens for at least 48 hours, depending on how mom and baby are doing. If we feel they are bonded, they are released into the main pasture with mom!

We have been lambing this week in sub-zero temps at which is not the norm for us at Aldenwood Farm. It’s slightly different in that we hustle the ewe into the prepared “jug” just prior to delivering. In the other seasons, they lamb in the field, we go out and carry the lambs, low to the ground, so ewe will follow, into the sheep shed. There, we have already gotten the jugs ready (about 6’x6′) with straw, a water bucket attached to the side, some hay, and a mineral pan. We have dry rags ready to dry the lamb if needed after allowing the ewe to try to clean it herself. 

We try to not interfere as much as possible, and observe the lambs to make sure they start nursing. A good indication that they are receiving milk is that they will wag their tails. After confirming they are nursing, we’ll leave them alone for awhile. We generally dip the cord in some gentle iodine with a paper/ disposable cup. Do not use the same cup for every lamb (or drying rag) to avoid confusing the scents.

The ewes and lambs stay in the jugs for a couple of days during warm weather but longer when it’s cold or if the lambs are smaller. We make sure to clean up and dispose of the placenta to avoid attracting predators. 

When I first started lambing, I made an exhaustive lambing kit. It included NG feeding tubes, and a host of other things that dry-rotted and gathered dust. The only thing I keep on-hand now are bottles, a bag of colostrum, and lamb formula.  However, I will add, we live right down the road from a farm supply.  Also, a couple of weeks before the lambs are due, the ewes get 2 ml of CDT, sub-q, for over-eating disease and tetanus. The lambs receive CDT at 4, 8 and 12 weeks. 

Since many of us are lambing or will be soon, I thought I’d share some of the supplies we keep on hand at Hollow Hills Ranch. This is not a comprehensive list, and there’s still more I may add.

Old hand or bath towels are great to keep on hand, especially with newborn, gooey critters. They save your clothes from becoming disgusting while working with your new babies and their mamas.

There are times when you need to give the moms a hand with birthing. This means you need to lube up and go inside to find legs, turn a lamb, etc. We prefer Dawn dish soap as a lube. Any time you need to enter the sheep with your hands, it’s a good idea to give them an injection of antibiotics to prevent infection.

We use LA200, a broad spectrum antibiotic. Be warned it is an intramuscular hot-shot and will cause pain. Don’t be surprised if your sheep favors the injected leg. Needle and syringe info is further down the page.

We used to use Iodine, but with it being so hard to buy now (thanks illegal drug makers), we use Povidone or Betadine for the lambs navels. Pour it into a plastic lotion bottle, stick the navels through the top, and press it against their stomach while tipping it up. We count to 30 then take it off to coat the navel well against the nasties from the ground.

Weak lambs require the use of a tubinga kit. It includes a baby food jar for milking colostrum from the ewe into, a tube that goes into the lamb’s stomach, and a 30cc syringe that attaches to the end of the tube. You pour the colostrum into the syringe and use the plunger to gently get it in the stomach (just make sure you don’t pump air in). You can search YouTube for videos on tubing a lamb.

If we have bottle lambs, we use black lamb nipples that we thoroughly wash use scissors to cut an “X” on the tip to make a slightly bigger hole. This is dependent on the age of the lamb. Younger babies need a smaller hole so they don’t drown. Older lambs suck it down so fast, it’s easier to get air back in if the hole is a little bigger. An old Pepsi bottle (we had the smaller 7up bottles for newborns as well) works great with those nipples!

I prefer the 5cc Luer Lock Syringes, though most feed stores have what is called Luer Slip. The luer is where the needle attaches to the syringe. The luer lock prevents you from accidentally pulling off the needle. I was lucky to work in a Dr office and ordered the luer lock. You can find them online as well.

Most of the medications use the 20ga needles at the largest but I have found that the thicker fluids (such as BoSe or LA200) work better with 18ga. 1/2″ work great for Subcutaneous injections, but we like 1″ for Intramuscular ones.

We vaccinate with CD/T and the supplement BoSe (not pictured). You can obtain BoSe from the vet and is only for those areas deficient in Selenium. Lambs get both shots shortly after birth, and then a booster of CD/T at weaning. Adults get boosters of both CD/T and BoSe once a year as well (easiest to do at lambing time as the moms and babies are jugged and you have a captive audience).

Use an elastrator to castrate ram lambs and in the old days we used to band our wool lamb tails with it too. Pretty self explanatory!

We use small brass Tambra ear tags on baby lambs. We get them from Ketchum Manufacturing. They just have a number on them and are small enough to not weigh down their ears.

After weaning (and deciding who is breeding stock and who isn’t), we start placing the white Scrapie tags and the colored Registration/Recordation tags. Commercial, unregistered breeding stock typically just get the Scrapie tag and keep just the brass tag. We order these from Premier 1. Q-flex 3 are perfect for the registration tags and not huge either. We get yellow for the Registered St Croix and Orange for the Registered or Recorded Katahdins. Our scrapie tags are usually white and Q-flex 5 size.

To see what our barn setup is for lambing season, click HERE.

Read Amy’s full blog post, complete with photos, on her website.