Zelda lambed last night with twins sired by Savor.

Look at the horns on this ram lamb!

Moon had twin ewe lambs this afternoon. This lamb was very striking after she was clean and dry--sparkling white and none of the coarser  birth coat that Jacob lambs are often born with.

While waiting for Moon to deliver, Jackie and I first castrated the two lambs that were born in January and then we dealt with one of last night's twins that died. (If you don't want to read the details then skip to the pretty yellow flower photo below.) When the lamb was born last night I thought that the umbilical cord was unusually large in diameter. My iodine dip didn't dry this cord up like it did the other lamb's.  This morning the lamb looked cold, but finally nursed and seemed to warm up. It was in the afternoon that I saw that she was very sick (near death). She was bloated and there was smelly brown fluid draining from the over-sized umbilical cord. I necropsied her and found what I suspected--her intestine had a dead-end. There was no connection between the colon and the rectum so there was no where for digested food to go. I'm not sure what was leaking out the umbilical cord, but I wonder if it was putrid  intestinal contents that filled the abdominal cavity.  Hopefully this is the only birth defect this lambing season.

It's a month before spring officially starts so it must be time for my annual blooming acacia photo. How can I resist that intense color?