Four New Lambs in Two Days

Yesterday, March 5, 2013, I was home and expecting that one of our sheep would have her lambs soon.  I was on the computer helping a worried girl whose dog was showing signs of going into labor.  At one point I told her I knew what she was going through because I was waiting for a ewe to lamb.

Two Lambs

Not long after that, around my lunch time, I went out to check and sure enough there she was in the shed with two new lambs.  I went out to get her and bring her into the barn.  The weather was just around freezing and there was a breeze, no place for wet lambs to be outside.  I got them in and dried them off.

The mom is a Katahdin sheep, her sister was the ewe that gave birth only two days earlier.  I moved the sister and her lambs into a larger stall and put this new mom into the small stall.  Of course I got some new lamb pictures too!

Sadly she did have a third lamb, I found it dead in the stall later that afternoon even though I had been checking regularly.

New Lambs!

Then today, March 6, I went into the barn in the morning to find another ewe had lambed.  I was a bit surprised, we knew she was pregnant, but I still thought she had a few more days to go.  I moved the other mom into the large stall with her sister to open up the small stall for the new mother, Dark Brown Barbado, and her two lambs, one girl, one boy.

This is the ewe lamb. As you can see, she is still a bit wet, I dried them off more.

This is the sleepy ram lamb.

Well now we have just one ewe left to lamb, that being Patsy the part Jacob ewe with 4 horns.  I think she will be another few days, but she might surprise us too.  Today is a bit chilly so I do hope it warms up for all the ewes and their new baby lambs.





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Cute Lambs Born in March

We have had mild weather for several weeks so we have been keeping our sheep (and lambs that were born in October) were outside all of the time, but on this particular day (March 3, 2013) it was a blizzard, with some wind gusts and 6 inches (15 cm), so decided to move the sheep into the barn for the night.

We knew that four ewes were expecting lambs.  We had bought a ram in October, ewes are pregnant for 5 months.  We did not think he had bred the ewes right away, but apparently he had.

As I was bringing in the sheep I noted one ewe was missing. If you have sheep it is very important not to assume all are there because it is sometimes easy to miss one, and a ewe that is thinking about lambing will separate herself from the others so might not come when called.

I went looking for the missing ewe, Mrs Brown Katahdin, a Katahdin (her breed) hair sheep. I found her standing in the old shed. She stomped her foot to try to keep me away, but I had no choice, she could not lamb out there in the cold. She was clearly in the process of delivering, her placenta was already out. I got her into the barn and left her.

After about an hour my husband and I went out to the barn to check her.  Sure enough there she was in a back corner with two little, and damp, lambs.  We had to hustle to get them into a private stall away from the other sheep.  We set her up in the stall with hay and water, and made sure the lambs were dry.  I took a few quick pictures, and sexed the lambs (both ewes) and left them alone for the night.

Cute Lamb Pictures!

Above is one of the ewe lambs, she is still a bit damp and you can even see the umbilical cord hanging down.  She is probably only an hour old (at most) in this photo.

Below is her sister, although these pictures were the following day, with this lamb being about 22 hours old or so.

She is perky and alert but still a bit wobbly on her feet.  The ewe and lambs will stay in the stall another day, they we will let them run around the whole barn, but it is much too snowy for them to go outside right now.

I will let you know when the other three ewes have their lambs.

Blackie Gives Birth to Twin Lambs that Look Like Calves

A few days ago Girlie gave birth to triplets. The next two days it snowed and we were quite concerned as we knew Diamond and Blackie were also due.

Normally it is best if sheep lamb in the spring, or at least later in the winter, but this spring we had an incident and did not quite get rid of our ram when we should have and he happened to breed three of the ewes while they still had their lambs with them from this past spring. We were not aware of this until a few weeks ago when it was quite clear that three ewes were getting udders.  Diamond was the largest.

On Monday, October 8, Canadian Thanksgiving, one of these ewes, Girlie, had triplets. The next couple of days were bad as the weather turned nasty and we even got snow. Today it rained. I was at work when half way through the day my daughter called to say that Blackie sheep (who had been a bottle baby lamb a few years earlier) had twins.  

My daughter said that one was a male (ram lamb) and one was female (ewe lamb) and that they were spotted and looked like cows.  The male has wooly hair and the female has more silky hair.  The female has more white than the male. 

My daughter said she knew there were some lambs because she could see Crystal, the llama, standing near the old barn with her head trying to poke into the barn. Crystal loves lambs, whenever there are new lambs she wants to get near and smell them. My daughter picked up the two lambs and carried them to the proper barn (where Girlie and her triplets have been kept indoors because her triplets are tiny and the weather is cold), Blackie followed well, which is good, sometimes the ewes panic and run around looking for the lambs.

When I got home from work I saw them, my husband tried to get some good pictures but the lambs were a little nervous. They are four days younger these two new lambs are larger than the triplets. 

Click here for a different picture of the lambs.

Sheep Trivia

Lambing Makes Me Worry so Much

With triplets born only days ago, and the ewes actually not due for another day, I was a bit surprised by today's events.

As you may know from reading earlier blog posts I live in Alberta, Canada, it is winter, so the ewes are in the barn at night and out in the day.  I opened the barn door this morning to find one ewe, Mrs Brown Katahdin, with twins.

She would need to stay in, as the ewes with new lambs are kept in the barn for a while to bond with their lambs and so  the lambs get stronger before going out (after all there is snow on the ground). 

I went outside to throw the hay over the fence and noticed one ewe, Blackie, wandering off to the old barn.  It was pretty clear at that point that Blackie would be lambing today too.

I checked on Blackie several times throughout the day.  At one point, just before lunch, I found her with one lamb.  That make it easier to get her back into the other barn - I just picked her lamb up and she followed me.  I put her in a stall by herself. 

Blackie and the lamb I found her with.

I had lunch and went out a little later to check.  I am now feeling terrible for not going out sooner.  I found a dead lamb in the stall, a black and white lamb.  I noticed yet another standing with her, as well as the earlier lamb.  She had given birth to triplets, and somehow lost one.  Was it born dead?  Did she not clean its nose off in time?  Could I have saved it?  What happened?  I tend to beat myself up mentally in these situations.  Poor thing.

As if that was not enough, later in the day when it was time to bring the other sheep into the barn, one ewe was missing.  It took a bit of searching (it was getting dark by this time) but I found Patsy standing with two new lambs.

And there's more.  When I got Patsy and her lambs back into the barn, I checked on everyone again, and decided that one of the triplets born days earlier was not looking too good, I would have to bottle feed it.  She drank good but this is an expensive thing to do, not to mention a lot more work added to the day.

Good thing I am unemployed!

Baby Katahdin Scares, then has Lambs Days Later

Baby Katahdin, our youngest ewe - being born last year, and the only one who would be a first time mother, is a shy sheep.  She is a bit smaller and was terrified of us earlier in the year.  Throughout the winter she has slowly learned how to trust us (the oats helped) but is easily intimidated by the bigger sheep who push her out of the way at feeding time. 

She has been thin - so I have been hand feeding her extra oats.  Two nights ago, however, she started choking on her oats, to the point it looked like she was a gonner.. she was frothing at the mouth and stood frozen, clearly in fear.  I gave her a hard smack on  her shoulder hoping to clear her throat.  Well the poor sheep must have thought I was horrible, but after a few tense moments she was fine.

Today, March 19, 2011, I went outside to give the sheep some hay for lunch, this is because our weather has been crazy this winter and we still have over a foot of snow on the ground and it gives them something to do in the middle of these winter days – eat. Finally we are seeing temperatures around the freezing mark, or just above – today was +1C (just above melting).

At the time I could see Girlie was in the shed with her two young lambs (just over a week old) and with her was Baby Katahdin – and just above the snow drift I could see a tiny white head pop up so I knew she had a lamb.

I went into the house to call my daughter for help. It's never easy getting one sheep and her lambs into the barn in the middle of the day. We spotted a darker lamb laying near by – shivering – both were still wet, born only minutes earlier. It took some doing but we finally got them into the barn (and chased the other sheep back out).

My daughter dried off the lambs, while I got their mother some water - ewes often need a good drink after lambing and this one was no exception. 

Having twins for their first year is not easy, she seems to be mothering both though and hopefully will have enough milk to provide for them - as she has been thin and does not have a huge udder - this is a concern!

The white lamb is a male - ram lamb.  The brown one is a female - ewe lamb. 

So that brings our total to 18 lambs - 9 male, 9 female, a perfect split!

First Lambs of 2010/2011, Sad Ending for One, but Lucky for Another

December 31, 2010 brought a sad tale to my little hobby farm.  By looking on the bright side we see that although one lamb did die, in a strange way, another was lucky that to have lived.

It's my job to take care of the sheep most mornings. They sleep in barn overnight, and every morning I go out to feed them and put them outside for the day.

The barn is small, about the size of a double garage, but there is a horse stall, however the stall itself would be too crowded to keep all our sheep (9 pregnant ewes and a ram) in so we only use that to confine the ewes who have had lambs.

As I approached the barn, at 7:30 in the morning, I knew something was amiss. One sheep was baaing a lot more than usual. I opened the door stepping into the dark barn, fumbling for the light. Immediately my eyes fell upon Blackie sheep (also nicknamed Piggins because she is a bit pushy at feeding time due to being a bottle baby, and overly friendly to people). Blackie was standing there with a tiny white lamb.

Sheep often have twins, so naturally before putting Blackie and her lamb into a stall I looked around for a twin. The twin was nearly impossible to find. It was brown with white speckles on its back, and had tucked itself behind a garbage bin, all that was showing was its back, in the dark corner the tiny lamb (smaller than a house cat) looked like straw. It appeared to be dead. I pulled it out by its hind legs, and thankfully it was very much alive, it had crawled in, and unable to back out, fallen asleep.

Mom ewe, Blackie, was glad to have her lamb back, he needed to be warmed up. The barn is not heated since this would actually be bad for the sheep, being kept in a heated barn then put out into the cold winter weather for the day. They would get sick. Mom, and the two lambs were moved into the stall she would have food and water.

I started to feed the other sheep, and put them outside before cleaning the barn. Thats when the dead lamb was found. Poor thing. It had died close to the barn door, but in the darkness before turning on the light, I had not seen it and instead been distracted by the sight of Blackie with her white lamb.

This poor lamb had not had the sack removed from its nostrils (the ewe usually does this), it suffocated to death, or perhaps was born dead, I don't know. At any rate, Blackie had been a mom of triplets (less common than twins but not overly rare in sheep). Since there had been three lambs they were slightly smaller than usual.

The amazing thing is that if I had found the dead lamb sooner, I may not have ever noticed the other lamb sleeping behind the garbage bin. I would have assumed Blackie had twins, put her and her white lamb in the stall and left for the day, who knows what would have happened to the other lamb.  I suspect it would not have lived as the day was -15C, and both my husband and I had to go to work, not returning until 5:30pm.

The lambs are now a few days old. The white lamb being slightly bigger and a female, the multi-colored lamb being a male. More lambs to come!