Our ram was in with our ewes (female sheep) for eight weeks, and we only saw him show interest in a ewe once.

We’ve had good experience with many aspects of raising sheep — from shearing to grazing — but we hadn’t tried our hand at breeding our sheep. We read up on what we could do to ensure success but hoped that nature would take its course.

We weren’t wasting a lot of time sheep watching, just waiting around for a chance to see signs of progress. Still, we weren’t expecting such an uneventful introduction between the boy and the girls.

Needless to say, it was a welcome sight when our ewes started growing larger bellies, producing milk and signaling that they were indeed pregnant.

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This payoff had been a long time coming. Way back in 2017, we had selected a ram lamb that we thought would grow up to sire some nice lambs for us.

Last fall, we let the ram start grazing with the ewes, and we waited. We did the math, and counting from the day we introduced the ram all the way through a full-term pregnancy, Valentine’s Day was the first day we should start expecting lambs.

Valentine’s Day came and went with no lambs, but that wasn’t a big surprise, as we usually plan on the lamb watch to last roughly a month. We didn’t have long to wait. Later that week, our first ewe delivered twins, and every other day, another ewe followed suit.

We had six lambs born to four ewes. We had hoped for 1.5 lambs per ewe, so we are right on track. And to be clear, we don’t hope for half-lambs, just to average our twins and our singles out to a good middle ground.

We’re halfway through our lambing. We haven’t had any new lambs in a few days, which gives us the chance to enjoy the lambs playing. After a ewe delivers a lamb or lambs, we put the new family in a “jug,” which is a small pen that allows mom and lambs to have good bonding time without being interrupted by other sheep. We give them the first two days together, and then we let them back out with the rest of the group.

It’s only minutes after meeting the other lambs that they are all thick as thieves. They test drive a few group hops. They run laps around the hay feeder. They eventually build to climbing up onto the backs of the ewes or a tree stump, kicking their feet out as they jump off.

Lambing season is a special time in our year because each check on the animals guarantees a smile. The lambs make us slow down. We take an extra moment to enjoy watching all the lambs line up and lay down together or snooze in the sunshine or — well, we’ll take a moment to watch pretty much anything they do.

Nate Brownlee operates Nightfall Farmin Crothersville. Send comments to [email protected].