Konstantijn says -
As some of you already know from previous newsletters, my favorite animals are sheep, and this is a brief summary of my lambing season experience this year.
The first ewe to give birth was Cindy, number C6. (The letter C means she was born in 2016, Ds are born in 2017, and so on. The 6 means she was the sixth lamb born in that year). It was Saturday, and we were eating breakfast when we saw her giving birth on the Lamb Cam. The Lamb Cam is a camera we've set up in the sheep yard that we can access from our laptops, cell phones, etc. Luckily, the first ewe of the season wasn't giving birth during the middle of the night!
Daddy got up, put on his coat, and headed out the door. A couple minutes later, I was outside too. It was a very easy birth; Daddy only needed to help a little bit. They were a boy and girl, both 15 pounds, a good weight. The girl's name is Genevieve, the boy doesn't have a name because we don't keep the boys.
Since then, we've had just over 30 lambs in the last three weeks! We have 18 mothers, so I'm not going to describe all the births, but I'll describe some of the more eventful ones.
I'll start with Cutie, C10, who gave birth to triplets in the middle of the day, without anyone noticing! They were only discovered after James walked by the sheep pen and saw three lambs on the ground!
Now, a fact I'm not sure how many of you know is that sheep eat the afterbirth to keep the smell of blood from attracting predators. It's usually a clean enough process. They just lick it off the ground and it's over with, but this ewe made a real mess. She got it all over the lambs, all over her, and all over the feeders she gave birth next to. There was blood everywhere, but both she and her lambs were perfectly healthy. She had two boys and one girl. The girl's name is Goofy, because that is what she is. She chases the barn cats, the chickens, other lambs, and just about anything else that can be chased.
The second birth I want to talk about is Freckles, F7. (One of my favorite sheep.) She gave birth at 3:00 AM, so I was woken up by Mommy, and after about 5 minutes, I was in the sheep barn. She had already given birth to one lamb, and was licking it vigorously, so Daddy and I just stood back waiting for her to be ready to give birth to the second one.
After waiting about 10-15 minutes, we heard a noise, a "schloomp" as my little sister describes it. The second one had just popped right out, with barely any pushing at all! It was quite a small lamb, only about 7 pounds, and the other one was 8˝ pounds, but they are both very healthy and very well mothered. Afterwards, I nicknamed them Teensie and Weensie.
I got home at about 4:30 AM, and I know that after going outside for an hour and a half, my sleeping mechanisms inside my head have shut down. They were not going to turn back on again until bedtime that night, so I just sat on the couch for about an hour, watching Lamb Cam making sure Freckles' new lambs were okay. After that, I went to my room and did some extra homework until 7:00, when it's time for me to feed the sheep. But their feeding was delayed because I heard Daddy going out the door again. Another ewe was giving birth. This time it was Flower, F8, Freckles' sister. Her lambs were bigger, so Daddy helped her a little, but it was still fairly easy. They were about 10 and 11 pounds, and very frisky.
There was another birth worth mentioning but I'll let Daddy tell this one.
Martin -
It was 4:45 AM when Tony called from Hong Kong. He let me know that one of my ewes had lambed out twins but he was concerned that another ewe was taking ownership of them. She was licking them dry for the new mom and the lambs were even attempting to suck from her instead. Harriett, our guardian dog, was very angry with her.
Harriett makes a point of trying to attend every birth and to guard the new moms and their lambs from any predators, and on this particular morning she was angry with herd queen Connie, the lamb thief. Harriett knew very well the lambs were not hers.
As I arrived on the scene, still shrouded with a cloak of sleepy stupor, Harriett was snarling at Connie. This was bizarre because she's never shown aggression to a sheep before. Two lambs are trying to suckle Connie while she's head butting the dog. And our poor first-time mom is in the background wondering if all of this was normal.
I deciphered the confusion, separated the new mom and her lambs from the flock and took them into our maternity ward barn where it was warm. The new mom, relieved, started settling into her role as mother while Connie bellowed with outrage like I had stolen her babies.
By now I was awake and knew that Connie's recent career as lamb thief was almost certainly a result of being in labour herself. The hormones were raging, and she had likely pushed a few times and just figured those two lambs were hers. She probably thought lambing was super easy this year.
I waited not more than a few minutes for her water to break. The first lamb was out in minutes. Connie was huge, so I was counting on multiple lambs. I waited for the next lamb, but it didn't come. After 45 minutes, I decided to wash up and find out what was happening inside the womb.
No matter how many times I have to explore the womb, it never loses its mystery. It's like entering a portal into another world of fog and mist. Small mistakes in movement or judgment can have grave consequences, so no matter what happens you have to remain calm and focused.
After feeling around for a minute, I untangled one lamb from another and turned it around. It was trying to be born shoulders first, which doesn't work. Ideally, the lambs will nose dive out of the womb, both front legs first and nose second. That wasn't an option because there was no room to turn the lamb around in that direction. I grabbed it by the back legs and pulled quickly. The lamb will gasp when the umbilical cord breaks and you must make sure its head is out of the fluids by that time, so speed is critical.
I had a second healthy lamb. I had felt a third lamb during my exploration, so I washed up again and found her. She was coming legs first with her head turned backwards. I pushed her back into the womb, flipped the head forwards and pulled her out.
Quite satisfied with my three baby girls all weighing over 11 pounds, I milked the mother and gave them all something to drink so they could rest instead of hunting for an udder. Birth can be very stressful and exhausting for the poor things.
I was exhausted too and getting hungry. It was 7:00 AM by then. Tony was watching from Hong Kong on the camera and made a passing comment as I was leaving the barn, "I was hoping to witness quadruplets :) ."
Tony has no experience with sheep and wouldn't know that four is very unlikely. We hadn't had quads in our 25 years of farming. I couldn't ignore his comment, though; I knew he was right. I went back in and washed up again and sure enough, there was one more lamb presenting perfectly in the birth canal taking her time. I found her front hooves and helped her along. Another 12 pounds. I could hardly believe it.
It's no wonder they were all tangled up, there isn't much room in the womb to organize and proceed single file when there's 46 pounds of baby in there.
I walked away shaking my head. I knew perfectly well that if Connie had had it her way, she'd have had six lambs that morning.
You just never know what to expect during lambing season.
