Selfsufficientish.com

we had lambs arrive last weekend. One all by herself and the other, the boy had to be helped into the world.


they are looking much sturdier than last year's triplets.. though they still have a long way to go.. sheep make a positive hobby out of dying.. its a wonder we ever get lamb to eat! but th next day these two were bouncing around, so thats a good sign.


meanhile the other two ewes have no intention of lambing. We shall send one to slaughter and buy a replacement, the other we shall prolly keep as she has a lovely long fleece and such a nice temperment

WOW!!! lovely, are your lambs male or female? leading to the question, can you keep one of them as a breeding ewe? Was that the same ewe who had the triplets last year then?

So many questions, they look good though, and well done to the boy for helping out

yes same ewe that gave us triplets last year. was sweating that she would do the same, but luckily twins.

a boy and a girl.. the girl is the serious looking one with the black nose.. the boy the idiot smiley one!

yes we could keep the girl as a replacement.. and we are considering it. but she would be a cross breed Devon closewool/ pol dorset.. ok, but we might want to get another Devon closewool, or are considering something totally different maybe with a coloured fleece for spinning and knitting purposes... depends on what we can get etc

They are lovely. What would you have done if all three ewes had produced twins - buy more freezers or sell them on? Just wondering how many lambs the average family needs in a year (for eating)?

I never noticed before how smiley lambs are. Aw, so cute. I often think how much I'd like to have a bit of land and 'grow' my own meat, but the actual slaughtering and butchering would probably be too much for me, being an ex-veggie, even though it would be done by someone else. If they kept smiling at me like that, I just couldn't. Do you name them, or do you somehow keep an emotional distance from them?

Millymollymandy wrote:They are lovely. What would you have done if all three ewes had produced twins - buy more freezers or sell them on? Just wondering how many lambs the average family needs in a year (for eating)?

buy more freezers! - I've worked it out in terms of Sunday roasts.. each lamb gives you four roasts (two shoulders two legs), if we mix it up with pork and beef, and allow for a turkey at Christmas , then we need about sixteen roast lamb Sundays, thats four lambs. Soooo.. if we have two ewes lambing, and they each gave us twins, that should do us. Of course they might have singles instead of twins.. but singles get bigger faster, so you can half the joints...

The the rest of the meat, chops, stew etc, would be for weekdays...
see.. I have thought of it...

Rosendula wrote:I never noticed before how smiley lambs are. Aw, so cute. I often think how much I'd like to have a bit of land and 'grow' my own meat, but the actual slaughtering and butchering would probably be too much for me, being an ex-veggie, even though it would be done by someone else. If they kept smiling at me like that, I just couldn't. Do you name them, or do you somehow keep an emotional distance from them?

We named last years - we haven't got around to naming these yet.. mostly we name them so we know which we are referring to when chatting to himself etc.. but as we have one girl and one boy, we are just using that at the mo.
They are *very* cute.. seeing them tear around the orchard like naughty kids is very charming.. but they do grow out of that cute look.. although the meat is called 'lamb' they are grown up by the time they go to slaughter.
I'm a confirmed omivore, so perhaps it's easier for me? but once they grow up and are a bit of a pain in the neck you start imagining the dotted lines on them like in the diagrams in cook books.....

red wrote:once they grow up and are a bit of a pain in the neck you start imagining the dotted lines on them like in the diagrams in cook books.....

red wrote:

Millymollymandy wrote:They are lovely. What would you have done if all three ewes had produced twins - buy more freezers or sell them on? Just wondering how many lambs the average family needs in a year (for eating)?

buy more freezers! - I've worked it out in terms of Sunday roasts.. each lamb gives you four roasts (two shoulders two legs), if we mix it up with pork and beef, and allow for a turkey at Christmas , then we need about sixteen roast lamb Sundays, thats four lambs. Soooo.. if we have two ewes lambing, and they each gave us twins, that should do us. Of course they might have singles instead of twins.. but singles get bigger faster, so you can half the joints...

The the rest of the meat, chops, stew etc, would be for weekdays...
see.. I have thought of it...

Wot, no roast chicken?!! Anyway if I let my husband read your posting he'd be wanting to keep sheep, as he adores lamb yet we rarely eat it due to the ridiculous price.* Me I'm not quite so keen.

* Tho I actually have a freezer full of the stuff as strangely our supermarket had a promo of ....... British or Irish lamb at about 1/3rd price of French lamb as it came in big packs of 1/4 of a lamb. So we bought two and I have all sorts of odd cuts that I haven't got a clue but will just get chucked in the oven as chops or a casserole or whatever. And I asked the new English food shop nearby to get me some mint jelly specially!!! So at the moment I am actually really enjoying it.