General Discussion & Chat: Coffee and...For Friday, February 17, 2006 =^..^=, 1 by MaryE

MaryE wrote:
Hello again everyone. Our weather is not nice, especially for having little lambs being born in it. I checked the flock twice last night, it was kind of a wild night although mostly when Paul, the owner, was there. He went out about 9pm and found 3 ewes with 3 lambs in a corner, couldn't tell which lamb belonged to which ewe, brought them all to the barn and got it sorted out. One ewe hadn't lambed yet, she was just so close that she was very interested. We call that kind grannies, they can either be a PITA or a lot of help. This one had a stuck lamb, it got straightened out and delivered and she had another one soon after. Another ewe was white faced and so was one of the lambs, so he put them together, and the 3rd ewe got the other 2 lambs which looked more like her coloring. When I got there everybody seemed happy with what they had in the pens with them. Another ewe came in with triplets, so one of those lambs got grafted (we hope it works) to a ewe who had lost both of hers. We'll know about that match in a few days. Last night she was doing a lot of stomping whenever her new baby tired to nurse.

There were no new lambs in the field on my first check, but there was plenty of barn work to be done so I kept busy for over an hour then went out to the pasture to check the flock. Nothing new except that the 4wheeler and lambmobile were out there and the 4wheeler wouldn't start. Again. So I had a nice walk without having to carry any newborns.

Came home, slept for an hour or so and then went back. This trip there was a ewe with twins and thankfully they were so new they were not chilled. I got the 4wheeler going and took them to the barn. There was a granny in the corral that seemed to be in the early stages of labor but still not laying down, however, she has some mucous and had picked out a sheltered corner so I left her alone. We needed to free up some of the pens so I bedded some of the small pens we call jugs (don't know why) in another part of the barn, moved all the ewes that had single lambs to them, cleaned a couple more pens, put down clean straw and came home. We are checking them at 2 hour intervals, so far have not had any losses to exposure, just one lamb who didn't figure out where his lunch was, he got tube fed twice and died anyhow, and his clumsy mother laid on his twin. She is the one we are trying to graft the triplet onto. If it doesn't work the lamb will be sold to a neighbor as a bummer (bottle baby).

Here are a few pictures I took yesterday. This little guy is just minutes old.