Bottle lambs & mixed breeding

We are up to 13 lambs after this morning. The last two sets of twins have been problematic, and resulted in 1 rejected lamb per twin set. We do not know the cause. 1 mom seems to recognize the lamb, but reject it -- although she lets it feed a little (but not enough to sustain it). The other left both lambs, but reunited with one when we took it to her. The other was twenty feet away, had not been at all cleaned off, and would have died had we not found it. It has now been fed colostrum mix, bathed, and is getting blow-dried by Bev.

Does the rejecting ewe who recognized her lamb just not have enough milk to sustain both lambs? Is something else going on? As to the ewe this morning who abandoned both, at least for a time, was the birth process unusually rough? Did she just get disoriented. Does the unusual cold this morning have anything to do with it? We don't know. We just know that of the last 4, we have two lambs that are at least for now bottle lambs.

I also have to report that we now have three Jacob ewes that have given birth to totally black lambs, that we think could only have happened due to their being exposed to one of our Navajos, Miguel. We were careful not to let this happen, as we hoped to breed these Jacobs to produce more breeding Jacobs, and their planned exposures were to our breeding Jacob rams. When and how were they exposed to Miguel? We may never know. It just goes to show that where there is a will, there is a way. It also goes to show that despite what our earlier attempts to breed Miguel led us to believe, Miguel does not shoot blanks.

We can only hope that our other Jacobs actually bred with our breeding Jacobs. Time will tell.