March 17 was St Patrick's Day and the day Patsy sheep finally had her lambs. Patsy is an
unusual looking sheep, she is part Jacob, part Barbado, she use to
have 5 horns but knocked one off leaving her with 4. She is part
wool sheep, part hair, so she sheds – sort of.
Three other ewes had their lambs last
week, when the weather was good, but a nasty storm had blown in a few
days earlier, dumping new snow and sending temperatures well below
freezing. At night the moms with lambs are in a stall in the barn,
the other sheep are loose in the rest of the barn, and I would let them
outside for the day, while leaving the moms and new lambs in the
barn.
I knew Pasty was due any day, but in the morning she was eager
to go outside. She ate her oats
and then snuck away as I was putting hay out. I noticed her standing
in a shed to the back of the pasture. Sheep are herd animals, they
do not go off on their own except for when they are lambing. I had
to bribe her (with oats) to get her back into the barn because at -15 celsius it was
much too cold to have lambs in a three sided shed.
I left the mom to be alone for a while going out
to check on her a few times. At about 11:00 her amniotic sack was
out (you can see it in the picture). I left her alone again, going back at noon. At noon I walked
into the barn, Patsy was standing near the back of the barn was having contractions, her head was held up
and she was straining. Having seen ewes give birth before I noted
she looked to be having a harder time of it, so I turned to latch the
barn door shut behind myself so I could get a closer look, but in the
moment it took to latch the door, by the time I turned around her
lamb was out!
Patsy stood up, turned around, and
started cleaning off her lamb right away. I waited at the far end of
t the barn for a few minutes. Her location at the back of the barn
was not great, there is a gap around the back door which let in a
cold draft so I wanted to move her, and her wet lamb, to a drier
stall. I picked up the lamb and carried him to the stall and Patsy
followed. I gave him a quick drying but mostly left the rest up to
Patsy and I went back to the house.
I returned an hour later (bringing
water with me as we do not have running water in the barn) and as
expected she had an other lamb with her. The second lamb was larger,
and white. Although Patsy has had lambs before I think this was her first solid white lamb, most have been spotted like her. The brown lamb does have white spots on his side. Both lambs are male, ram lambs.
After another three hours her placenta
was shed, I picked it up and took it to a place away from the barn area where I know
ravens will come and gobble it up, and then added new dry straw to
the stall.
All sheep are doing well and hopefully the weather will improve.
Other Reading
My Husband's Account of the Lambing - with some information on lambing in general
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