Three sets of twins born last night.

[sheep_herder ★]

Most of the 11 lambs and maybe all have been born at night.

[Airehead ★]

What do you expect the total to be?

[sheep_herder ★]

18 minutes ago, Airehead said:

What do you expect the total to be?

I do not have a clue, but we have just started. I don't remember what we had last year.

[Kirby ★]

Congratulations! 

[MickinMD ★]

sheep_herder:

I heard it from one of my fellow tourists when I was in Bethlehem, looking at the hills where flocks of sheep were allegedly herded 2000 years ago.  And I read it in various places.

They said that "shepherds watched their flocks by night" ONLY during the lambing season in the Spring to ward-off wolves and other predators. They said that Jesus was therefore actually born in The Spring. Since the New Testament doesn't specify a date, December 25th was chosen so the celebrations of persecuted Christians would blend in with Roman festival of Saturnalia and the Christians wouldn't be conspicuous. For example, these clearly poor-researched "authorities:"

https://biblicalculture.wordpress.com/2015/01/04/the-real-birth-time-of-yeshua/

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Spring/LambsAreBorn.aspx?age=ks2

But these lambs you've been having in December and January seem to shoot that theory down - at least the timing of shepherds watching their flocks.  They also shoot down the know-it-alls in the links above that say lambs aren't born in December.

But I found one good piece of information:

"The Awassi sheep is a desert sheep, a fat-tailed breed that has existed in the Middle East for an estimated 5,000 years. It is the only indigenous breed of sheep in Israel. They are raised for wool, meat, and milk. Awassi sheep breed in the summer and drop lambs in the winter, when there is sufficient pasture for the ewes in milk. In Israel, the principal lambing season is December through January." Source: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/janetheactuary/2017/12/jesus-born-spring-idea.html

Are your sheep related to the Middle Eastern sheep?  Like ancestry.com told me, do they have 1% Jewish blood?

[Parsnip Totin Jack ★]

13 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

Are your sheep related to the Middle Eastern sheep?  Like ancestry.com told me, do they have 1% Jewish blood?

Yes, they are all birthed circumcised.

[sheep_herder ★]

Mick it is hard to compare farm flocks to those herded in the middle east.  Ewes begin to cycle with cool nights during the summer, and this will occur later in some years than others.  Most producers keep their rams separated from the ewes until a time that produces lambing during a certain time period.  That is a best practice, but in our case, it is difficult to keep them separate, so they breed when the nights begin to cool.  Luckily we have building to house the animals when the weather is severe. We lambed early in South Dakota in the late 60s, so that we would have lambs to sell for the Easter market.