Okay Cyber-Shepherds. Time for you to help us choose the naming conventions we’ll use to name this year’s crop of kids and lambs. The examples next to each convention are not necessarily the names we’ll use if the convention wins; there just there for illustrative purposes. Please select your TWO favorites. The top two vote getters will be the winners. The polls will be open till Sunday night.

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Reader and lambcam watcher Sandra asks, “Why is there a sheep in the kidding area?”

Daisy is my only Babydoll Southdown ewe and she is what they call an “easy keeper.” She can get fat even when she’s only eating hay. Even though she’s bred, I pastured her with the boys and lambs this winter because they were on an all hay diet and I didn’t want Daisy getting even fatter by feasting on grain all winter. Now that she’s getting close to lambing, I want to move Daisy in with the ewes and start her on some grain to give her the extra nutrition she needs for her last month of pregnancy, but putting her in with the ewes and their ample portions of grain would be too big a transition and would make her sick.

Daisy is in the kidding area so that I can control the amount of grain she gets for a week or so, and slowly ramp her up to get as much as the other girls. Hannah is furious that Daisy has invaded her space by Nanny McPhee and Mrs. Doubtfire don’t seem to care.

In other farm news, we had to giant round bales of hay delivered this morning by our friends the Hopkins.

We put one round bale in with the non-breeders and one in with the ewes.

Then, while everyone was busy eating, we fenced them into small paddocks with moveable fencing.

Keeping the flocks confined to small areas now will allow the new pasture to come in and establish roots before the greedy sheep and goats are turned out on it. We practiced rotational grazing in New York and on Martha’s Vineyard but we never gotten started so early before. Green grass in March is like a dream.

The main advantage round bales is that they are about 1/2 the price of square bales. (Each round bale equals 20 to 25 squares.) There is also a small time savings in that we won’t have to haul hay out to the flock twice a day. The disadvantages are that they are difficult to move and subject to the weather. We put the ewe’s bale in the large run-in attached the barn so it would stay dry, but that wasn’t an option for the non-breeders. They will still eat the hay after it’s been rained on, but it isn’t as appealing and loses nutritional value.

Hopefully we will be able to turn the flocks out on to pasture in two or three weeks. It’s going to be 70 degrees today and the green grass is coming on fast. Rain tomorrow and through Saturday, but we need it, and at least it’s going to stay warm.

Still no babies in the kidding pen. Stay tuned.

If you’ve tuned into the Lambcam in the last couple of days, you may have noticed that one of the three nanny goats waiting to give birth is a bit louder than the other two. And when I say “a bit louder” I mean loud enough to deafen people in Washington DC and parts of Maryland. That loud mouth is Hannah, and I absolutely adore her obnoxious self.

Hannah and her twin brother Martin were my first goats and my first bottle babies. As kids, they followed me on hikes around the farm, trailing along behind the dog and my then-husband. We treated them more like dogs than livestock, and probably spoiled them a bit.

I think Hannah is just lovely. In fact, I think she looks like Julia Roberts, although I totally get that most people don’t see it. Her fleece isn’t so lovely, though. And she is a little bit…entitled. I didn’t breed her until she was three and I had some concerns that she wouldn’t be a good mama. Her mama rejected her after all.

More wrong I could not have been! Hannah’s first kid was a single, named Mint, and Hannah was a fantastic mama.

This is one of my favorite pictures of all time, ever. Hannah and Mint, just an hour after he was born.

Last year, Hannah had twins, Jasmine and Jester.

I used to think I was Hannah’s biggest fan, until my friend Linda brought her friend Grace over to the farm last year. Grace and Hannah immediately struck up a friendship. Grace became a frequent visitor to the farm but really, she was there to see Hannah. I know they were both heartbroken when we moved to Virginia.

Hannah will almost certainly have another set of twins this year.

And she will dote on them as she always does. But for me, these babies will be extra special because Jack, another goat that I raised from one day old with a bottle, will be the Daddy.

Jack is the opposite end of the bottle baby spectrum from Hannah. He’s calm and gentle and just lovely to be around. It’ll be interesting to find out what the temperament of the kids these two produce will be.

Stay tuned. Hannah’s udder is getting full. Babies soon.

I don’t care what the calendar says. Today is the first day of Spring on Juniper Moon Farm! It’s going to be 66 degrees today and stay in the 60s for the next five days. I couldn’t be happier if it was raining money.

The nanny goats are settled into their stall in the barn awaiting the arrival of kids. If you’ve been watching the lambcam and wondering who the goat with so much to say is, it’s Hannah. I adore Hannah, but I might be the only one who does. She and her twin Martin were my first goats and my first bottle babies. Hannah is a spoiled brat and very entitled. She can’t believe she is being forced to share a stall with Mrs. Doubtfire and Nanny McPhee and she lets me know it every time I come in the barn.

[Thankfully, FoF Nancy figured out what was causing the echo on the lambcam; refresh your browser and the echo should disappear!]

The lambcam is in the white box mounted on the wall pointed down at the goats.

Miss Linda, Dimples and Jasmine were evicted from the kidding stall to make room for the nannies. It was time for them to get outside, but I do worry about Linda. She isn’t very competitive at the trough and the ewes tend to push her around a bit. I’m keeping a close eye on her to make sure she’s getting enough to eat and I’ll move her back in if she starts to lose weight. I’m also giving her a very strong pain reliever every morning to help with her arthritis.

The three of them seem happy to be outside with the rest of the flock, although they are still very much a family unit. When one of them wanders away from the others, they call to one another the way a mama calls her babies. Remember, Jasmine and Dimples aren’t Linda’s babies; she just adopted them when they were all thrown in together.

Do you see what I see in this picture? Yup. That’s green grass coming up in my pasture! The flock has been grazing for a few days, but I assumed they were just picking at the brown, dead stuff from last year. That grass is as good as money to me, cause it means I will be able to cut way back on hay very soon. This is much earlier than we ever saw green grass in the Northeast; my love for Virginia increases every day. I might be able to get away with only buying one more big load of hay this season.

It was a lovely morning with the ewes. I’ll spend some time with the non-breeders [whethers, buck, and lambs] this afternoon and take some more pics. In the meantime, I have to get back to dyeing our Fall 09 Yarn CSA Shares.

Erin came over today to help Paige and I work the flock. It’s been about six weeks since we last wormed everyone and we also needed to vaccinate for CD&T and delouse the goats. Since we’re only a few days away from the nannies kidding and about a month from lambing, it was a good time to check the ladies to see how their pregnancies were progressing.

The nannies are so wide! Judging from the size of their udders, I’m betting that Hannah will kid first, followed by Mrs. Doubfire and, finally, Nanny McPhee.

When they aren’t bred, the udders on ewes and nanny goats almost disappears, becoming completely flat, and their teats shrink down as well. Although she’s laying on her side, you can see that this nanny definitely has milk coming in.

The end of each teat is plugged with a waxy substance that prevent bacteria and gunk from getting into the udder. When the kid is born, we will make sure that the plug is stripped out so that the babies can nurse.

The ewes are all showing signs of bagging up as well. They aren’t nearly as far along as the nannies, and with good reason; they shouldn’t start lambing until April 15th.

All the ewes have loads of glorious fleece! On March 19th, Emily, our A-MAZ-ING shearer, is coming on March 19th to begin the shearing process. We have way too many animals to shear in one day without rushing and risking excess nicks and cuts. We’ll shear about half the flock in March the rest at our Shearing Day Celebration on April 24th.

The bad news from today is that there is a possibility that Miss Linda might be bred. We thought we had kept her well segregated from the buck but it looks like she may have gotten caught anyway. Of course, there is a chance that she’s experiencing false pregnancy- Linda lives to have babies, and she has produced a set of twins every year of her life since she was a year old. (We think she’s around 15-years-old.) I am hoping very hard that she isn’t bred, because Linda is just too old to feed one baby, let alone two.  If she is pregnant, we will bottle feed her kids from day one but leave them in with Linda to mother. But keep your fingers crossed that she’s not, please.

As hard as it is to believe, we are very nearly in kidding season. We bred our three Angora nanny goats to kid beginning around March 10th. Of course, it could be much later than that, depending on when Jack, our buck, actually got the job done. Goats and sheep both gestate for about 150 days.

As you can see by looking at Mrs. Doubtfire here,

the girls are getting that “about to pop” look.

The last four to six weeks of gestation are the most important in terms of nutritional requirements for the bred goats and sheep. We will slowly be increasing their grain ration to nearly four times what it was earlier in pregnancy.

This is also the time to order all of the supplies we will need for kidding and lambing. Most of the things we need are already on hand here at the farm, but we lost some of our refrigerated vaccines when the power went out, so I’ll be placing an order for more tomorrow. We will also be keeping an eye out for old towels to use to dry off newborn kids and lambs, checking to make sure the heat lamps are working and cleaning out the stalls in the barn where all the action will take place.

Goat-wise, we are expecting two sets of twins and one single. That’s based the number of kids these particular nannies had last year, but it’s entirely possible that Nanny McPhee could have twins; this will be her third time kidding. Honestly, I’d rather she didn’t. We have way more than enough goats!

The thing about January and February on the farm is that there is never much to report. Our routine becomes much more, well, routine at this time of year. Farm chores in the morning, a quick change out of filthy farm clothes followed by office work, throw something together for lunch, back to answering emails and OH LOOK! it’s time to change back into farm clothes for evening chores. It could be monotonous if it weren’t for the animals and their personalities.

Don’t misunderstand me- I welcome the slower pace that comes in winter. Soon enough we will be kidding and lambing,the farmers markets will start up again, summer visitors will arrive and our lives will once again be just this side of chaos.

Speaking of lambing and kidding, it’s time for y’all to start thinking about naming conventions for this year’s lamb and kid crop. Long-time readers know that we chose a naming convention every year for the new babies. There are a few good reasons for this but my favorite one is that it’s a lot of of fun. Last year we named the baby goats after fonts and the lamberoo after states.

We will be taking naming convention nominations on this post. Because I’m feeling lazy, I’m going to copy and paste what I wrote last year about what kinds of names we are looking for. Here’s what you need to know: The category needs to be something with lots of naming possibilities. Candy was great cause there are umpteen jillion kinds. Think broad. Characters from fiction? Good. Characters from Dickens? Fine.  Characters from Salinger novels? Not so much.

We have already used Candy, Herbs and Spices, Presidents, Nannies from movies and fiction, States, Fonts and Islands. I am actually still a little bit in love with state names and could easily be talked into continuing on with that convention until we get them all. Last year’s lamb crop was pretty paltry and we only got as far as Delaware.

Come up with a convention for the lambs and one for the kids. Remember, we only have three bred nanny goats this year, so I’m expecting five kids, maybe six. We have LOADS of bred ewes so the convention we chose for lambs has to give us lots of options. Most of our ewes should twin and one might even triplet!

We will winnow the list down in a couple of weeks and have y’all vote. Put your thinking caps on! The first one to suggest the conventions we go with gets to name the first lamb or kid in that category.

I keep forgetting to tell you that I dropped my camera on New Year’s Day. It already needed to go into the shop but after the fall it was really, really broken. It’s fixable but it takes forever to get it to and from Nikon so I was really bummed. After struggling with it for days I finally gave in and ordered a new camera.

The timing was horrible- January is always our slowest month for sales- but I just couldn’t be without a camera for the next six weeks. I bought another Nikon that works with my lens so it wasn’t insanely expensive. But I still hated having to buy it.

Until I used today and completely fell in love with it.

I really enjoyed taking pictures today and feel like I’ve broken out of my creative rut.

A couple of quick housekeeping things. Erin has put up a Follow the Fleece for our Fall 2009 Shareholders. Wondering when you will receive your yarn? Click here to watch the progress.

For those of you coming to our Fort Worth Stock Show Meet-ups January 21st-24th, I’ll be posting a bunch of here in the next couple of days with our schedule, locations, etc. I’ve gotten some emails from North Texas readers wondering if they can join us and the answer is a huge YES!

Twin Doelings named Ophelia and Odette.

This is Heidi’s Daughter Zoe, who came all the way from NYC just to see the newborns. 

The babies are small, particularly Odette, but both have had a good long drink and are full of energy. Linda looks really great and she’s taking great care of her babies. We are all hugely relieved that the babies are here and Linda is safe and sound. What a spectacular ending to the 2009 kidding season! And we are thrilled to have shared it with you.

Erin and I are exhausted from the Maryland Sheep and Wool show but we had such a lovely time meeting shareholders this weekend! Y’all are all so kind to us! Patrick is exhausted from having to do all my farm work over the weekend. (I think he has a whole new respect for what I do!) 

Many more pics tomorrow when I’ve gotten a good nights sleep.

Our friends Jean and Dan and their son Joe came over on Sunday. Jean took some fabulous pics. See them here.

Patrick’s younger son Logan was on Spring Break last week but, since his mom works, he still had to go to daycare most days. On Friday when he was with us, we gave him the option of going to daycare or staying home and helping around the farm. He chose to stay home and, as a result, got to witness a baby goat coming into the world for the very first time. And the second time. And the third time. 

In total, Logan watched 7 babies being born this weekend. While I was helping with labor I gave Logan my camera to take pictures. I though ya’ll might like to see what he thought was interesting and important.

EDITED TO ADD: I forgot to say that Logan is 11 years old and a 5th grader.