Patsy the Five Horned Ewe Has Twins

On the very cold morning of January 15, I went out to the barn to feed the sheep and check them as I have been doing every day now for over a month.  The last week has been particularly hard, temperatures have been well below normal, sitting at -23C on this morning.

If you have been following, you know that the sheep are brought into the barn at night and go out in the day.  They get oats in the morning before going out for their hay.  The ones with lambs remain in the barn, which is small and unheated but still far warmer than outside.

This particular morning Patsy was standing in a small corner there with two new lambs at her feet.  She is a good mother, not even leaving her lambs while I gave oats to the other sheep.

If you look close you can see that Patsy still has some snow on her back from the day before.  Her twin lambs are males, thus - ram lambs.   Patsy sheep also has 5 horns and sheds in a strange sort of way.

Patsy is a cross between a Jacob sheep (known for having many horns) and a Barbado sheep (hair sheep - thus the shedding, although a full hair sheep would not have the wool she does).

Read more about Jacob Sheep
Read more about Barbado Sheep

That brings our lamb count for 2011 to 9, with Diamond, Favorite, and Mrs Dark Brown Katahdin due soon, and Girlie and Baby Katahdin later in the spring.