We had a pasture surprise this morning, our ewe Meryl with twins in the pasture, born in the night, dry and warm and with full bellies. Meryl was a perfect mother and handled her birth like a pro. Melinda was elated to find them and snuggle those little lambs in the crook of her arm to bring them in to the barn.
Today is 146 days after the rams went in with the ewes, and we were planning to sort the ewes this morning based on their ultrasound data and whether they are showing signs of being close to lambing (full udders and soft and swollen vulval area). But Meryl jumped the gun and did great!
Melinda brought the lambs in to the barn and didn’t tell me what she had found. We were texting about what time we were going to sort the ewes and then I showed up in the barn and…surprise! lambs!
Sometimes those first lambs are a bit lonely, as it may be days before others are born to join their play group. But Meryl’s lambs will have playmates–this evening as I was getting ready to bring the ewes we sorted out into the barn, I found two ewes in labor! Chalet, a first-time mother, was already showing multiple water bags and clearly going to lamb soon, and Aurora looked like she was in early labor.
I enjoyed the beautiful early evening and the waning light, and watched Chalet in her labor.
At sunset, I brought the group into the barn. Chalet, as a first-time mother, clearly needed to work on her labor for a while. I made sure she was clearly visible on one of our security cameras and then went home for a quick dinner while watching her on the camera from home. When she seemed close to delivering, I rushed back to the barn and arrived just as her lamb was born, a beautiful big boy.
Chalet was such a good first-time mother! She cleaned off her lamb and fussed over him, and I let them be for a while while I readied her jug. When he was ready to nurse, he somehow bonded on me for a moment! I used that to lead him into a jug and Chalet followed. In that enclosed space I was able to get her coat off (we remove the coats while ewes are bonding with their newborn lambs, so the lambs have no risk of hanging themselves on the leg straps while they learn to nurse). I stripped her teats of their wax plug and was so pleased to see her reaction! As soon as I touched her teats, she stood stock still and hunched her back, a stance that makes the teats most available to the lamb. Some first-time mothers are a bit hysterical, circling around and around trying to lick their lamb while it is trying to nurse, but Chalet’s mothering instincts were admirable. She stood perfectly still for her lamb just as she had for me, hunching her back and making her teats available as he had his first drink.
Aurora’s apparent labor had been a false alarm, and when I went up for the 10:00 barn check she was calmly ruminating with all the other ewes.
