The lambs enjoy their first sunshine

So much has been happening that I haven’t had a chance to write any of it down!

The lambs starting coming and came with a vengeance - in ones and twos, in the middle of the afternoon and the middle of the night. As each ewe started to go into labour, (they lay down, strain and pant and sometimes curl up their lip in an odd, Elvis-like sneer) Rich would put them into one of the specially fenced off little lambing compartments that we had cleaned, limed and lined with fresh hay.

Hopefully, after that it’s just a matter of the mother delivering the lamb, which plops out onto the hay with its mouth and nose still covered with the sac. She cleans it off and starts licking the whole lamb, and without seconds, its standing and able to nurse! 

 And then, of course, sometimes things don’t go so well…

 Two of the lambs - twins - were born prematurely, and we lost them both. And sometimes, just like in humans, the lambs can be in a breech position, (with its hind legs first, instead of coming out with its front hooves just under its nose) or in an awkward curl with one leg back. 

And then you have to intervene…

When Rich asked me to come up to the shed because there was a problem, I took a deep breath, put down my dish cloth and marched up, hoping that I wouldn’t actually have to do anything. 

There was a ewe down, panting and straining, and nothing had happened for a matter of hours. Rich’s hands are big - not ideal for lambing - and he wanted me to “have a look.” Which means, putting my hand up inside the ewe and figuring out which bits of the lamb were where. 

Rich said that the first time we met, he eyed up my hands, trying to work out if they were small enough for lambing. He says now that he was joking when he said that, but I wonder…

Anyway, I knelt down beside the ewe and did as he told me. I instantly forgot about the “ugh” factor of what I was doing, in the fascinating puzzle of trying to work out which bits were which. Rich told me that the front hooves (which we were hoping to feel) would be facing down, while if they were the rear hooves, they would be facing up. (Imagine a lamb leaping over a fence, and you can imagine how the hooves are.)

I could definitely feel hooves, and told him that they were rear ones - although of course I was wrong, and they ended up being front ones! In any case, I could feel there was something stuck, and gently moved it, and suddenly the lamb came shooting out. We dried off its nose and mouth, and within a few minutes it was up and around. 

Its twin actually was turned around, in a breech position. This time Rich told me to simply follow the hoof up the leg to where the lambs tail should be, and make sure that it was tucked down between the legs. The tail is bony, and if its in the upright position, it could rip the ewe from the inside. 

I checked and double checked the tail, and then pulled the lamb quite quickly - in this position you have to, or the lamb will drown, as the sac has already broken - and there we were, lamb number two. Success!

And it was strange - although I didn’t feel any of the “Ah, the miracle of birth…” that I was expecting to feel, about five minutes later I felt like I was going to burst into tears for no apparent reason. Rich says it often happens like that…

One of the lambs was born to a new ewe, who didn’t have enough milk for it, so we took it inside to bottle feed. Joli immediately took possession of the little stranger, and when I came in from the lambing shed, this is what I saw:

Joli and Mansel

They’ve been inseparable ever since….