Thursday, May 15, 2008

LAMBS! (finally!)



Lily finally lambed today but not without drama.  I was up every hour last night because her udder was huge and she was off in the far fence line sniffing the ground.  I had to go to work though, and she still hadn't gone into labor.  I had a meeting today at lunch so I asked Tom to check on her then.  He found her with an intact bag but looking exhausted like she had pushed for a while.  He called me just before I was going into my meeting so I gave him some general advice and told him where the problems with newborn lambs and ewes book was.  He then called me (during the meeting) on my cell- the lamb had it's neck and head twisted back.  He was able to correct it despite his large hands with a lot of lubricant, and the lamb came out fine. It was trying to stand up when he had to leave to go back to work- after he moved them into a pen.  When he got home from work Lily had a second almost identical ram lamb, and both lambs are doing fine.  When I came home I nursed out one huge udder, but both lambs have obviously eaten off of the other side. We're calling them Huey and Dewey- Tom got to name them since he saved their lives.  We already have a Louie- he's Lily's half brother.  All is well (except the selfish fact that I wanted a ewe lamb out of Lily).  Now Suzette is acting like she's in early labor.  Should be another long and sleepless (not sheepless) night.

2 comments:

Kathy said...

And so it begins...

Tom should give himself a solid "Good onya, Mate!" for being there and doing the best thing to help Lily.
And congratulations on two healthy ram lambs and relieved mom!

Donna said...

I'll pass along the "Good onya, Mate!" to him. Thanks for the congratulations and am now anxiously watching Suzette to see how her lambing will go!

Shaun the Sheep "Off the Baa"

Shaun the Sheep clip "Save the Tree"