We’re Off and Running!

Last evening while I was at yet another meeting, lambing officially began! Ewe #104 had a baby boy. Because I wasn’t there when Melissa ‘processed’ the baby, no photo. But this morning, 9703 had an even bigger boy. He enjoyed the photo session because we scratched his head and chin, and soon he forgot he was supposed to be afraid of us, and just closed his eyes in baby bliss.

When a lamb is just a few hours old, Melissa catches it. It doesn’t run away because it doesn’t know what’s up. She gives the lamb a shot and an ear tag, bands its tail, looks it over to make sure it has all its parts, and feels for a belly to make sure it’s nursing. The last thing the lamb gets is a big kiss on the head, then Melissa releases the lamb and it goes scampering back to its bellowing mom. After this, the lamb will be impossible to catch unless we can sneak up while it’s sleeping.

We are getting pretty relaxed about lambing. We used to make sure the ewes were in the right part of the pasture days before lambing started. They still aren’t there this year, but we’re moving them in that direction. No big deal.

Days in advance, I always made sure I had lots of frozen colostrum for a sick newborn, but I didn’t start thinking about that until yesterday. Got some from a friend, so that’s done.

No straw in the barn in case I need to make a bed for a bottle lamb, so we’ll scare some up soon enough.

Is this called “just in time” management? Or “wait until the last minute” management? Or maybe it’s called “Relax, we’ve done this enough times we know we’ll solve each problem that arises” management.

Two ewes have given birth, one’s in labor as I type, so we have 41 ewes left to go…..

There will be more cute lamb photos to follow, should any of our sheep actually give birth to a cute lamb… 🙂