Today was a quiet lambing day, with 8 ewes in the “drop paddock,” where we put the ewes who, either by ultrasound data or by physical signs, we believe are the most likely to lamb soon. Those ewes are in an easily accessible paddock during the day and come into the barn at night.
Lily’s daughter Lulu, an experienced ewe with a lovely grey fleece, spent all day in the shelter, looking worried, while all the other ewes in the drop paddock were out grazing. I was sure Lulu would be next to lamb, but she was showing no sign of being in labor.
Around 3:30 I headed home to do a little office work, before returning to the barns at 5:30 to help Lisa bring in the ewes. She had just checked them, and said no one was in labor. But when I told her Lulu had been in the shelter all day, she realized she had only counted seven ewes, rather than eight. We went to check the shelter and Surprise! there was Lulu with a lamb that had just been born moments earlier! It was a nice big boy.
I ran to get a towel and the sling to carry the lamb into the barn, while the remaining ewes watched me.
I returned with the sling and Lisa used the towel to dry the lamb a bit. Just as we were getting him into the sling and preparing to bring mother and lamb into the barn, Lisa exclaimed “Wait, what’s happening?” and SPLAT! a second lamb dropped out of Lulu and hit the ground! No apparent contractions…even Lulu didn’t seem to know what was happening. The second lamb looked much smaller than the first, and was totally encased in the birth sack. Lisa tore the sack open and cleared the lamb’s head of membranes so it could take its first breath.
I got another sling, while Lulu licked off her new daughter, and then Lisa and I conveyed the new family into the barn.
We weighed the lambs, and the girl was a very respectable 9 pounds, and only seemed small in comparison to the boy, who was huge at 14.25 pounds. Lulu loved them both. After spending all day in the shelter not eating, she was suddenly famished, and settled into a dinner of alfalfa while her new lambs took on the challenge of learning to nurse so they could enjoy a first meal of their own.
