Pasture Drift Lambing

At Alexander Sheep Farm, we have been successfully lambing on pasture for decades.  Pasture lambing reduces the overhead of an expensive indoor lambing facility.  It saves a lot of labor.  Most importantly, it greatly reduces our feed expenses.  We time our lambing to correspond with the greatest forage growth for our very late gestation and lactating ewes.  Here in the Finger Lakes of NY State the spring flush of growth is late May and early June.  Much of the danger of extended periods of cold rain on newborn lambs has passed. By lambing in the later spring, our market lambs do not reach desired weights until winter, when prices are traditionally much higher than in the fall.