Lambing began right on time this year on March 1, with a pair of twin girls born to Bungalow. Bungalow is a moorit-carrier and was bred to our moorit ram, Cappuccino. Moorit is a recessive mutation that causes the normally black pigment molecule, melanin, to be oxidized to a brown color. Bungalow carries one copy of the moorit mutation, and Cappuccino has two. It takes 2 copies of the mutant gene to produce a moorit lamb, and Bungalow’s lambs were certain to get the mutant gene from their father and had a 5o% chance of getting their mother’s copy. So each of Bungalow’s lambs had a 50:50 chance of being a moorit. As luck would have it, we got one of each, one black and one brown, and the contrast is fun to see.
Bungalow and her lambs weren’t long alone in the barn; the next morning Shadow surprised us in the pasture with a single girl. It had been raining all night and Melinda found Shadow and her daughter on the hill in the morning. The lamb was warm and vigorous, despite the rain.
After that morning, we had 5 days with no lambs born! Bungalow and Shadow and their three girls became a tight little family, graduating together from the jugs to the mixing pen in the other barn, and spending their days together out on pasture.
This morning, Brownie finally broke our lamb-drought, delivering twins, a boy and a girl, in the pasture. We. have a lot of ewes who look imminent, so are expecting more lambs soon!
