“MaaaaMaaaaa!!! I don’t want to be put in this pen with all these other babies!”

“And there’s chickens in here!!!”

“I also don’t want to be in here with you screamers!”

It has to be done, putting in ear tags and also banding the little males.

“But I don’t want to have and ear tag right now, I’m too little!”

“And besides, my brother and Mama are outside screaming for me!” Ok, ok, we won’t tag you this time.

But the others got tagged, and banded. I get our ear tags from Premier and learned some great tricks from them. First of all you order the tags in consecutive numbers and I started them with a 3, for our third year of lambing, and then from 301, on up. Also you order a different color for every year, so at a glance you can see from what year they were born.

“But I don’t want one of those in my ear!”

Another great trick I learned from them is that you tag all the females in the right ear.

And all the males in the left ear.

This way at a glance you can see if a lamb is a male or a female, without having to check their plumbing.

It is very important to feel the ear carefully and put the tag in between the two large blood veins, not too close to the skull, and not too close to the edge so they don’t rip out easily later. Then we squirt some iodine on the hole, which does not bleed at all.

The nervous moms wait outside the pen until those big babies are let go.

Also these two were just born and will be tagged next time the man is here.

“Oh, mama! What is this fatty coming into the barn?”