Tom and I were doing every 2 hour barnyard checks through the night. And finally between the 4:30 AM check and the 6:30 AM check Wink delivered two lambs. By the time I found them they were licked clean and standing. I was unsure if they had nursed and the afterbirth had not delivered. So I dipped their umbilical cords, dried them some more with a towel and moved them into a dry clean pen in the barn. There I made sure they were nursing well.
They look a lot like Heidi’s lambs except the black lamb is a ewe lamb. Here’s the black lamb.
And here’s the brown lamb.
Heidi’s lambs we named Hodor (the black ram lamb) and Harlen (the brown ram lamb). Wink’s lambs we are calling Walda (the black ewe lamb) and Wendel (the brown ram lamb).
So for those of you who are adept at Shetland genetics, I can have question. The two escaped rams are Lewis who is black flecket and carries BB/BB color genetics and Bambam who is solid mioget carrying Bb/Bb color genetics with the mioget modifiers. Both of the ewes involved are Bb/Bb with some modification as well. So they each had a black lamb with white markings consistent with Lewis’ genetics and not Bambam’s. And they both had a brown lamb consistent with Bambam’s genetics and not Lewis’. Does this mean that each ewe was impregnated by both rams on their wild night of escape? Or is there some other explanation?
If Lewis is indeed BB/BB, he could not sire brown lambs. And BamBam could NOT sire black lambs out of brown-based ewes. The only plausible explanation is that Lewis is the sire, and he is BB/Bb.
Thanks for your input on this Michelle!
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It’s unusual to have superfundication (2 different fathers per birth), but possible. In sheep it’s mostly because there usually isn’t exposure to two different rams during the same heat. Here’s one reference:
https://books.google.com/books?id=Ns8OAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA413&lpg=PA413&dq=Superfecundation+in+sheep&source=bl&ots=sKOH7v-m_I&sig=b5Bw5rgTF1HTad5q6Goa8R5Xp9k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JaRxVbjcD4anyQTY2YN4&ved=0CDkQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Superfecundation%20in%20sheep&f=false
🙂
Wow! Thank you for the great reference. Both rams were put the same night so it does seem possible.
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