Farmers Have Lambing Season Down Cold ; Ohio's Flocks Growing Despite the Weather, As Their Keepers Keep Them Warm and Fed.

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ELIZABETH TWP., Miami County -- On farms across the Miami Valley, lambs are getting an especially wintry welcome into the world this year. Lambing season -- when ewes give birth -- lasts from Feb. 1 to mid-March at Ric Wallace's farm near Casstown. He's pleased with the results so far, despite considerable snowfall and subzero temperatures that bring out the heat lamps. As of noon Monday, eight of his family's ewes had had 13 live lambs, with about 75 ewes yet to give birth beneath the hulking beams of his bank barn, built about 1850. "One of these days, I'll come out and there'll be seven or eight having lambs at once," said Wallace, whose family has raised sheep competitively for 50-plus years. "It'll get crazy." During lambing season, he checks his family's flock of Southdowns and Corriedales each day at 6 a.m., then every two hours or so until midnight, making sure they have plenty of feed and dry bedding. Wallace, president of the Ohio Sheep Improvement Association, said Ohio has more sheep than any state east of the Mississippi River.

Snow doesn't threaten lambs as much as the cold, he said.

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Farmers Have Lambing Season Down Cold ; Ohio's Flocks Growing Despite the Weather, As Their Keepers Keep Them Warm and Fed.

Still, the threat of significant snow h...

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