Summing It Up

Finally... yesterday morning, the last ewe lambed - twins - a ewe and a ram.  There may be one more straggler; she shows little sign of being bred but we had the the ram lamb in with the ewes all winter so chances are she could very well be a very late lamber.  We still have a few ewes and lambs to move out in the field but the majority are out of the barn and enjoying the back paddock. 

We will probably keep the triplets in the barn for awhile longer in one of the bigger pens, just so we can keep an eye on them to make sure Hera is producing enough milk and all three are gaining weight. 

We have two patients in the barn at the moment - poor Ceres, a two-year-old ewe, had to be taken to Kingwood to Doc and have a cesarean.  She was in kind of semi-labor for about 24-hours and it turned out that she had torsion of her uterus.  It was twisted 360 degrees, and that was why she did not fully go into labor.  Her twin lambs were lost, and we are having some trouble getting her to eat.  We try to encourage her with herbs, dandelions, clover, etc.  She received quite the salad last night; it even included some violets. (Many thanks to Joe and Betsy for all their help!)

Our other patient is the yearling Poppy who somehow managed to get a 3-inch gash over and a small puncture wound under her right eye.  We haven't quite figured out what happened, but she seems to be on the mend.

Of course, now we are looking forward to filling the blog with cute lamb pictures for the next few months.  They each really have a distinct personality, and they are so entertaining.  The back paddock is quite noisy in the mornings and evenings.   We will be watching closely to make sure they are all growing properly.  Sometime in the next couple weeks, we will bring them all back to the barn for CD+T shots, etc.  (If you are interested in statistics, please check the sidebar for some lambing season stats.)