Rural Gardening: Pregnant Icelandic Ewe - need help predicting birth., 1 by gallesfarm

gallesfarm wrote:
Congratulations! She must have been bred right around the end of the first week in November.

It's really hard to tell when an Icelandic is going to lamb going by their udders alone. I had one ewe that developed a huge udder, so big she waddled around it, and she was like that for a couple weeks before she lambed. Others don't get as big. Bigger udders don't necessarily mean more milk.

Sometimes they just surprise you. But usually the vulva gets really soft and sort of flabby looking as everything relaxes in preparation for birth. In early labor, they may go off feed (or not), walk around, paw the ground, lay down, get up, occasionally strain as if they need to pee, etc. The babies do drop, so that is a sign too, as you noted.

Here's a pic of an ewe I had, about five minutes before she went into active labor.