She had a little moorit (brown) ewe lamb and a larger black ram lamb, who will probably morph to grey as he gets older.
Clover lambed this morning!
I thought it would be useful for new sheep owners to see some signs of labor. Here is Clover this morning when I went out - I could tell she was ready to start because she had some mucus and she was stretching, laying down, getting up, and she had hollowed out by her hips. See how her hip bones are really protruding, and there are sort of triangle shaped hollows in her sides. The babies are being held very low in her sides. Before, they were up high.
Some sources will tell you that sheep will not eat when they are getting ready to give birth. Clover has other ideas about that. She went out to eat with everyone else, even though she had already passed the first water sac (you can still see it). She ate a lot!
So, don't be fooled into thinking your sheep is not going into labor because she is eating. All sheep vary!
This is what you will see *just* before the lamb is born. A cloudy fluid fills the second sac (different from the original water sac). You can really see the hollowed out areas in this photograph. During this time, she is making little bleating noises and keeps trying to see her rear end. It is also important to try to shear the area around her back end to make it less messy. We sheared a couple of weeks ago.
Here you can just see that the first tip of the hoof is emerging, and Clover is on her front "knees" and pushing. She took that position a lot during the process. The front hooves should come out first. It is good to read in advance about the various positions a lamb can take in order to know if you will have to help or not.
Then Clover lay down, and the first baby emerged. They come out in a kind of sticky bag, and usually the bag breaks during the birth. It's important to get the bag away from the baby's nose and mouth so that it can begin to breathe. We use a clean towel for that purpose. The baby should immediately be put in front of the mom so she can smell it and start to lick it off.
Here's baby! We dried her off initially but mom does a lot of licking, but she was still pushing, so the second lamb was on the way.
Here you can see her still working on the first baby but the second one is on the way, and it's preceded by another clear filled sac, just like the first baby. This is different to the afterbirth, which is just kind of like a rope, and is not another baby coming.
Clover eventually lay down to deliver the second baby, all the while licking the first one.
The other baby is a black color ram lamb. He's more than twice the weight of the first one (8 lb 7 oz compared to 4 lb 1 oz).
We then brought her inside with her lambs because the wind is a bit cool here today. This also ensures that they bond well without the distraction of the rest of the herd. It took a long time to get the little ewe lamb to nurse - she was quite weak, probably because of her size. The ram lamb was at it right away. Clover passed the afterbirth about an hour later. Don't pull on it in an attempt to get it out faster - that's not good for the ewe. Just let it pass naturally.
When the lambs have been born and you're pretty sure there are no more, give the mother some grain or sheep chow and some warm water with molasses or corn syrup mixed in. They are often thirsty and they need energy to keep attending to their lambs, etc. The babies' umbilical cords should be dipped in 7% iodine to ensure that infection does not set in. Then you can just sit there and watch lamb-TV all day. :-)
Here is Bramble, the girl, now that she is dried off and nursing much better. I notice she has a tiny light patch in frot of her right eye. Hey Karen, when you read this - do you think that's a sign of carrying badgerface or something? Or is it just a little anomaly?
Just for the record, her eye is not cloudy - that's just the flash.
Here are both lambies, dried off and happy. This is about 6 hours after their birth.
Wow.. what a lesson! From beginning to end, at any point I probably would have locked her up thinking something was wrong.
When that second sac showed up and there was no baby in it.. lol.. I would have went searching for it!
How on earth do you leave everyday to go to work or class? to cook, to sleep? I would just be a mess with all you have going on. I am in awe!
Thank you so much, this is one thread I will definitly refer back to.
So now I'm thinking about Icelandic genetics as outlined by Gallesfarm on the other sheep thread.... (sort of thinking out loud but please comment if you think I'm right/wrong)
Clover is (I think) heterozygous for black/moorit, solid or grey(?) and carries spotting.
Thunder is moorit, solid (?) and carries spotting.
Clover had Bramble, who appears solid moorit, would be expected if Clover is hetero for moorit, because Bramble also would have moorit from her father.
The boy lamb, who might be named Sven (Kelly is still deciding) appears black, not brown, so that means he had to get the black gene from one parent, and it can't be Thunder (bcs he's moorit homozygous) so that means Clover has to be hetero for black also. This confirms that Clover's two base color genes are black and moorit.
The real question is about the grey. The little ram lamb's nose is pictured below. Now, if he's got some white there, which it appears to me that he does, it could be a sign of the "grey" trait. If so, I am not sure if that came from Clover or Thunder. Neither lamb has any sign of mouflon or badgerface, so I think I'm safe assuming that Clover carries neither. They grey is a bit tricky to me, because I've seen pictures of lambs that are described as black greys that look like black spotted to me. Urgh.
I agree with you Fran.. this was the next best thing to being there with a narrator even! Thank you Claire! I don't intend to have sheep.. or goats, but this was a great learning process and I appreciate you taking the time to share.
I see the lil girl also has a lil shark's tooth shaped spot dead center on her forehead.. or is that just a reflection? Immediately reminded me of when Krystal was little and saw The Land Before Time.. she was scared of Shat Toot the T Rex.. (sharptooth) :)
They say out of the mouths of babes..
But my questions in response to your genetic coding there Claire is..
Isn't birth color a non issue? Was I to understand, you really cannot tell anything from the color anything is first born with?
Again, I know NOTHING.. (really) I just seem to have that info somewhere tucked in my waistband fiing cabinet.
ZZ - I think that's a spot that hasn't been fully cleaned by Mom! It's not a different color. I didn't even notice it until you said!
Glad you both enjoyed it! It's so exciting for me as a new shepherdess, so I figure others would enjoy it also, even if they don't plan on having sheep. I've learned a lot and I keep learning, so it's good to pass on these things to others!
Fran - I check everybody each morning before I leave, and when I checked this morning, I saw her signs, so I didn't go to school. Sent my prof an email to say I would not be in my 8 am class, sent my secretary an email, and said I'd be in when I could be, but not to expect me. Soemtimes it's hard to keep everything organized though. One more sheep to go, and then we're done until maybe late summer.
Fran, I'm not sure about the color thing, but most of the blogs I follow with shetland sheep births, the "human parents" announce the color at birth, so I *think* you can tell.
Thank you Claire for sharing in your beautiful way.... I am reading this at work, and almost felt like I was there until the phone rang....
MissJestr....the phone ALWAYS rings at just the wrong time!
DANG PHONE!
you are a great teacher. First I wanted chickens, now I want lambs...but who's the babies daddy??????
Daddy is Thunder - he lives on a farm not too far from us with another family who raise Icelandics. Clover and 2 other ewes of ours were bred to Thunder.
It can be hard to tell when they are just born if they have the sugar lips or not. It should become more pronounced over time if it's really there. And when the thel starts to grow in it will be white if he has the grey gene, so when you part the wool, you'll see it.
Remember that grey, badger, and mouflon only need one copy of the gene for the pattern to be expressed. So only one parent needs to carry it, and if they happen to pass on that one copy, the lamb will express it.
Looking at the picture of Thunder again, it looked like he's actually a moorit grey, so I went and looked him up - yup, he's a grey. So chances are those are sugar lips on the black lamb, but you'll know for sure fairly soon. Be interesting to see if the moorit lamb also ends up being grey.
Cool cool cool! How did you look him up? Maybe I can look up Oreo and Clover and KitKat?
Mox!! What a great show and tell, very enlightening. I loved all the pic's but one, I have a weak stomach. But it was excellent. Haystack
Claire, I sent you a Dmail about looking up sheep.
Karen
I posted a little video of Bramble (the brown ewe lamb) just learning how to stand. It's not super quality because it was just taken with my camera, but it's cute anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8beoBEeKN1k
WOW!! What a thread! A lot of info here! :) Great pics. Those babies are adorable.