# Took me by surprise



## Womwotai (Feb 12, 2014)

This morning while they ate their grain, I inspected the nether regions of my 3 ewes and was stunned to find the bags of two of them filling up.  They don't look that pregnant yet and I was thinking we are still a month out (the ram runs with them all the time so due dates are a mystery).  I came inside and looked up Parsnip's lambing thread and relaxed a little.  The bags on mine looked about like the pictures in her original post and after that it was 18 days before her lambs were born.  Plus, my ewes didn't look nearly as big as hers.  I also looked up my calendar where I had noted when the ram had seemed interested in the ewes and found my memory had been faulty.  I had remembered it being mid-October but found it was actually Sept 19th when I first saw him mount one, and when I looked it up on the chart, that would have put her due date as yesterday.  So I figured the first time didn't take and she probably got impregnated on her following heat cycle, which made me even more relaxed about waiting another few weeks.

So this evening I went outside to do my evening chores and since it is the mildest evening we've had for over a week, I puttered around enjoying my chickens and turkeys.  Then I walked into the sheep pen and around the corner came a ewe followed by a still-wet, still-tottering lamb.  Amazingly I had my phone in my pocket, which never happens, so I was able to snap this:



 
There followed some very hasty rearranging of things.  As you can see, she (yes, I checked and she is a ewe lamb) was born out in the snow and was still tottering around in it.  She had not yet nursed in this photo, but did start nuzzling under the forelegs looking.  A little while later she figured it out and got her first meal.  But though I'm glad she waited until our forecast consists of a slow warming trend, tonight is supposed to get into the teens.  

So I encouraged Mum to take her into our shelter, a 3-sided affair where she is surrounded by hay.  The bedding layer is very deep now, and baby soon lay down and almost disappeared into a "nest" of hay.  She looked very comfortable and wasn't shivering at all, so I hope she will be okay tonight.



 

I also took the precaution of locking the rest of the flock into an area where they will have protection from all elements.  Another ewe's bag looked the same as this one this morning so now I'm afraid she's going to give birth sometime soon as well, and I wanted her to be somewhere safe and relatively warm.

I'm so excited but no one around here really cares.  I figured you guys would understand….


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## Pioneer Chicken (Feb 12, 2014)

Congrats on the healthy ewe lamb!!!   She is adorable!! I haven't seen a sheep with brown spots like that before; of course, I don't know sheep that well but... so cute!


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## Womwotai (Feb 12, 2014)

Pioneer Chicken - I love those little spots myself and they are a bit of a surprise.  Mum is all white except for a few peach-colored spots on her head.  Dad is white with brown face and legs.  I guess the brown spots come more from him than her.

Oh I forgot - I also took a picture of her lying down in the hay.


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## norseofcourse (Feb 12, 2014)

Awwwww, congratulations!  That first picture is so cute!  Lambs are so sweet.  Glad they're doing well.

Did you have iodine for the umbilical cord?  I always worry about that...


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## Hens and Roos (Feb 12, 2014)

Congrats!  What a cutie!


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## bonbean01 (Feb 12, 2014)

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!  Nothing like a healthy very cute surprise like that!!!!!


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## Parsnip (Feb 12, 2014)

What a cute lamb! 
I adore lambs with spots!!!
Does she have a name? 

(I'm flattered that you check my lambing thread lol)


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## Womwotai (Feb 12, 2014)

No name….I am open to suggestions.  I am terrible at naming my animals and the ones who have names, its only because they came with them.

I really enjoyed your thread, Parsnip!  I only started reading it recently when I joined and by then your lambs were already a week or so old so I didn't chime in "after the fact", but loved all the photos and went back to them today to use as a reference.  It was actually on seeing your pics that I decided earlier today I still had quite awhile to wait for my own lambs so it gave me all the more of a shock to go out tonight and find this little gal tottering around.


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## RedBrush Farm (Feb 14, 2014)

Congrats! No matter how many come along, I never get tired of seeing new lambs! So glad you got them in before it got colder


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## Womwotai (Feb 14, 2014)

Thanks Redbrush!  The new little lamb did great her first night and is now just over 48 hours old.  Today she started doing a lot of the cute little hopping and skipping and bucking - I can stand and watch for a long, long time


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## Pioneer Chicken (Feb 14, 2014)

Womwotai said:


> No name….I am open to suggestions.  I am terrible at naming my animals and the ones who have names, its only because they came with them.



Hmmm...what about naming her _Surprise_ since she came unexpectedly (&, of course, most welcomely, right?)? 



Womwotai said:


> Thanks Redbrush!  The new little lamb did great her first night and is now just over 48 hours old.  Today she started doing a lot of the cute little hopping and skipping and bucking - I can stand and watch for a long, long time



I can do the same with my goat kids.  They're so entertaining and adorable!  I'd hold 'em all day if I could; they're just too precious!


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## Womwotai (Feb 14, 2014)

Oooh, I like that name idea!  She was definitely welcome - she was just a surprise because in the course of the day I'd talked myself into believing she was still several weeks away.  Of course now I have two more ewes looking very pregnant and I'm constantly checking to see if there's any progress from them and they probably WILL wait several more weeks….


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## Southern by choice (Feb 15, 2014)

What a little beauty! Congrats!


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## mysunwolf (Mar 9, 2014)

Love the spots, what a beautiful lamb!


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## PyrOfTheFlock (Mar 13, 2014)

What kind of sheep are these? I have a ewe that looks just like this about to pop any day now. I also have a lamb that looks kind of like the baby, she is white but with one brown ear, brown spots on both sides, and brown spots over her eyes, but she was born from a different ewe. I got my ewes from a rescuer when they were lambs and she didn't know what breeds they were but I'd like to know even if it's just a guess. I was very surprised when her mom lambed a few weeks ago, lol, ours have always lambed in April.  Here's a pic of her the day she was born.


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## Womwotai (Mar 13, 2014)

Oh, how cute!  My ewe is full Dorset while my ram is half Dorper and half Romanov.  The colored spots are from the ram as the ewe is all white.


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## PyrOfTheFlock (Mar 13, 2014)

Womwotai said:


> Oh, how cute!  My ewe is full Dorset while my ram is half Dorper and half Romanov.  The colored spots are from the ram as the ewe is all white.


That's awesome! Do you use their wool? My lamb's sire was a Suffolk and the mom is part wool/part hair, she spent her first summer as a lamb so I don't know if she will shed or not this next summer. I also have the mom's dam and she is a wooly but she also came from the rescuer and I don't know her breed. I may just post a thread with pics of her and try to get everyone's input on what they think her breed or mix of breeds are.


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## Womwotai (Mar 14, 2014)

We have yet to shear them.  We got them as lambs last summer so this year will be the first year we shear.  I don't have any plans for the wool but if anyone has any ideas…..


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## Baymule (Mar 14, 2014)

Beautiful lamb. Yes, we are excited for you!! I have a name for your spotted lamb. Dit-Dot. The spots look more like dots than spots, at least to me. Love the lamb!


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## hilarie (Mar 14, 2014)

It's almost St. Patty's day.  I say her name is Limerick


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