K Bar K Farm

Lambs

Our ewes are easy lambers, in fact, I actually see very few lambs born. I love walking into the barn or pasture to see a new family dried off, nursed, and tucked away. We typically have a 180-190% lambing rate on the mature ewes, and 140-150% on ewe lambs (lambing at 12-13 months of age).

Winter born lambs (Feb) are creep fed a texturized feed and third cutting alfalfa hay to promote growth for the Greek Easter market. Late spring and fall born lambs are not creep fed since plenty of high quality pasture is generally available. In the past, lambs were fed a corn-based pellet after weaning along with either alfalfa hay or pasture (depending on availability of pasture). However, that will change with increasing feed prices. We maximize pasture as much as possible in our operation and are buying very little grain these days.

Lambs typically weigh 1 lb./day of age by the second or third week of life, and usually  maintain a group average of 0.5-0.8 lb/day (consuming a forage-based (pasture or hay) diet with a bit of supplement) through the first 4-6 months of age, with individual lambs easily breaking 1 lb. ADG at the younger stages.  

Click HERE for pictures of examples of our lamb crops.

Click HERE to see pictures of our lambing facility.

Napping on a sunny spring afternoon