Lambing-Day 2

Part of being in Farm Club is that you get a complete Lambing Journal report every night with all the nitty-gritty of what happened during the day. Sometimes it gets a little long-winded like today's report. However my blog posts are usually mostly photos. I'm thinking about writing a post every day there are lambs, but realistically that may not happen. I don't write one every day when there are NOT lambs, so I don't know why I think I'll have time to do it now. And is this really Day 2 of Lambing? Day 1 was really a month ago when the surprise lambs were born. But I'm calling that the Prologue to lambing season. Or maybe it's the Prequel. Anyway, I'm calling this Day 2.  Only two more ewes lambed but it seemed hectic, partly because it got complicated by a dog semi-emergency. Rusty described that in his blog post just a minute ago.This is Mae, who lambed with twins a little after midnight.

Before I went in the house at 2 a.m. I put Athena in the lambing area because she didn't look right and I figured that she was in labor. (A good sign that something was off was that she showed no interest in the grain I offered her as enticement to follow me in.)It's a long story, but she probably had ketosis (pregnancy toxemia), fortunately in the early stages. After talking to my vet I got more proactive and pulled the lambs.That black lamb is 11.4 pounds and his brother is almost 8 pounds. The only other white lamb I've had sired the BFL ram was this same cross--Athena x Faulkner--and there was also one black and one white. After some careful watching and TLC (interspersed with dealing with Maggie) Athena seems to be doing fine.And how about a little more baby horse cuteness? I went down the road to visit this guy again. Here he is about 36 hours old. I got to pet him this time. So soft!

Lambs!

If you read the last post you know there is a contest about who will lamb first. No one is a winner yet because the choices didn't include the ewe who did actually lamb first. (Don't worry, the contest was just for the ewes in that blog post--we'll still have a winner.) I came home from town today to find Ears, a BFL-x ewe, just about ready to deliver. I didn't have a breeding date for her so no lambing date either.One lamb.Two lambs.Three lambs. All were up and nursing quickly. Good job, Ears!

I always look at the sheep surroundings for potential hazards. My feeders are chained to the fence or wall so they can't fall on a sheep. If I use baling twine to tie something (rarely because I have plenty of 2' lengths of chain with clips)...but if I do use baling twine I make sure that there is no loop in which a sheep could get a head or horn stuck. If I leave a ewe to lamb in the larger lambing area I make sure the gate is shut with an extra chain because I know a lamb can squeeze through the space between the gate and the wall. So I was sitting in the straw watching the first lamb move around and I planned to move this extra panel before I went to the house because......I knew that, however unlikely, a lamb could get stuck between it and the wall.  Sure enough, that happened while I was still sitting there.

So what could be cuter than a baby lamb? (Or at least As Cute?)How about this foal that was just 12 hours old?He was born down the road at my friend's house. We have to wait 5 months for lambs to be born. This foal was due on January 29 (11 months) and was just born today on February 22! That is almost a year of gestation for the mare.