We had a successful lambing season this year, thankfully, as last year didn’t go well. We are back on track plus five healthy lambs!

Gardenia

Gardenia had her twins right on time in the evening, but she started getting a little pregnancy toxemia/ketosis a few days before she lambed. She stopped eating grain about four days ahead of time, but kept eating hay. I managed to get her into the jug while she was in labor. We drenched her with some high energy pastes daily lest she go off her feed entirely. It took her a couple days to start eating good again after her lambs were born. We kept them in a jug for about four days before we returned them to the flock. She had a ewe lamb, Pixie, and a ram lamb, Ghillie.

Clove

Clove had her first lamb. I was so excited for her to have a lamb as she never fit back into the flock very well after being raised as a bottle lamb! She loves everybody’s lambs. She often lamb-sits for other ewes as she likes lambs so much.

Clove had her lamb early and all by herself. I had come out to the barn that afternoon to turn the sheep out to graze and there she was, talking to a little black lamb, not quite sure what was going on. It was a hot day (in the 80s) and she had the lamb pretty much cleaned off when I got there. I’m so proud of Clove for doing it all by herself! I got her into a jug with the lamb and had to spend some time teaching it how to nurse, but Clove got the hang of things fast.

Her ewe lamb, Selkie, is a firecracker! She is very clever, always has the zoomies, and is quite the character! She makes us laugh all the time with her antics. Selkie has two matching white teardrop markings under her eyes.

Raven

Raven’s due date came and went, but no lamb. Raven was HUGE. There had to be a lamb in there! So, I kept an eye on her…and 13 days later, she went into labor. She gave birth in the evening to a whopping badger-faced ram lamb.

The ram lamb was overbaked for sure! He was born with teeth, which were still under a thin membrane of gums. You could clearly see all his front bottom teeth. Sometimes they just aren’t ready to come out on their due date, I guess. Raven’s gestation was ~158 days. We named him Wulver and he likes to chew on everything. He was the same size as Gardenia and Clove’s lambs when he was born.

Spinner

It was Spinner’s first time lambing and she gave birth to a wee little ram lamb that had very thin wool and hair. He was born on his due date, but he definitely seemed underbaked! She started showing signs of being in labor in the early afternoon, and was in final stages of labor by about 10pm that night.

I was finishing cleaning up dinner and checked the cameras, but couldn’t see anybody. I could hear her yelling though! I ran out there with the flashlight and she was laying on her side out in the paddock screaming as loud as she could. It was definitely a dramatic birth because Spinner is a flightly ewe and had a lot to say. I couldn’t catch her to help her, she would just get up and run. I thought she was going to pop the lamb out and run away and I’d be stuck with a bottle lamb. Finally, she fell over on her side and pushed hard, I brought the lamb up to her face, but she stared at him in shock.

It was a windy, frigid night and I hoped she would spring into action before he got hypothermic. I kept pushing her nose onto him telling her to lick him. She wouldn’t lick him. I repeated this over and over until finally she gave a tentative lick. She didn’t understand what was happening, but instinct was slowly kicking in!

I let her lick him for a while before I picked him up and took him a few feet away towards the barn. She followed to lick. Then I moved him another couple of feet and she followed. We repeated this until I got them into a jug. Then I had to spend an hour or so with my arm around Spinner, keeping her in a headlock until she got over her aversion to letting the lamb nurse. Despite being somewhat naked, the little lamb had lots of energy and was pretty clever about finding her teats.

Eventually Spinner got over herself and let him nurse, but only on one side. She was very sensitive in the udder and barely had any milk! The labor was so fast. I did dry him off a little with a towel finally.

I woke up in the middle of the night around 2am and checked the camera to see how things were going as I was worried about rejection. I saw her fling him against the side of the jug! I ran out there to see if she now hated him. Once I got there though, she was standing placidly still while he was nursing. I leaned against the jug panel in exhaustion. It must have just been a one-time hormonal rage or he got in her way? I still don’t know how he made it through that first night.

He is a scrappy little tyke. We kept them in the jug for five days as we waited for his wool/hair to grow longer and Spinner’s milk to come in better. His wool is very, very fine. However, his ears got sunburnt on the first day outside in the sun because they didn’t have a lot of hair on them! We haven’t figured a name for him yet. Trying to stick with our Scottish Folklore & Myths theme…