# Just not sure....



## RemudaOne (Feb 7, 2012)

Do you think she's pregnant?





LOL . I feel for this little ewe, but when I saw her from this angle, my first thought was "STEP AWAY FROM THE BUFFET LINE". .

Now, the first time I said "That's got to be twins" with a different ewe, she had one HUGE baby after a difficult and assisted birth





 On our third lambing, you could scarcely tell she was pregnant by her size and here's what we got





So I don't really know what to think about this little ewe. Anyone care to speculate?


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## aggieterpkatie (Feb 7, 2012)

Well I'm not guessing on numbers of lambs, but she's definitely preggo!  And holy cow, that single lamb was HUGE!  Did you get a weight on him/her?


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## bonbean01 (Feb 7, 2012)

I'd say...she is pregnant!  That second photo with the very large lamb, that ewe looks just like my ewe Suzie!  Indentical markings...Suzie is a very sweet ewe and is three years old now and still no lambs from her.  She is on her 4th day of hormone shots in hopes she will cycle.


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## RemudaOne (Feb 7, 2012)

Abbie, that large lamb was our first lambing EVER and I thanked God for my experience with foaling mares and the few farm calls I've gone on with our good friend who is an equine vet AND most importantly, a BYH AND BYC member who stayed up with me via constant emails with support and encouragement and years of experience to help me.  The ewe started at nine in the evening and that picture was taken at about three the following morning. That's about the time that my BYH mentor and I said goodnight/morning. The lamb presented with one leg back and at that size, no way was it going to come out like that.  I had to wake my husband to help and I pushed the lamb back in and found the other leg and got it forward. THEN came the issue of the ewe's exhaustion and mine too, lol and more importantly, the size of the lamb. We finally got it out with my husband pulling and me working the skin over the head. Hubby now has rotator cuff surgery scheduled for the 16th :/ . I didn't get a weight but I can tell you that it was easily twice the size of the second lamb born and of course, much larger then those twins. Unfortunately, I think some negative effects resulted from the difficult birth. She acts like she has vertigo but I don't think it is brain damage as she is easily the smartest lamb here. She figured out the creep feeder very quickly. 

Bon, the ewe with the large lamb is my sweetest/friendliest ewe and the lamb is the same way. You would think she would hate us after what we had to do to her during the birth. Of course, she got a horrible infection after that ordeal and I'm sure she felt like a penicillin pincushion, but we got it cleared up and she's still very sweet. Here's a better pic of her and the lamb.





This all happened on the evening/morning of the 22nd/23rd of Dec. When I went out to feed on the morning of the 24th, this is what I saw on another ewe.





LOL, I could have cried!! 
Here are both of the lambs today. Weird how the second lamb caught up in size. Also has much more muscle mass than the first lamb. 
Just glad first lamb is enjoying life so much . They're about six weeks now.


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## bonbean01 (Feb 7, 2012)

Our Suzie is also our sweetest ewe.  A dumb question here...how did you know she had an infection and how did you know when it was gone?  I had to assist last year with a first time Mama and both feet were back...had to glove and go in and could only get one leg up, but it was a small lamb and all was fine.  Probably should have given her antibiotics after that too?

Keeping my fingers crossed that Suzie will become pregnant this year...but not hoping for such a huge lamb and problems!!!  Good job in helping your ewe


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## aggieterpkatie (Feb 7, 2012)

Great job delivering that lamb!  The biggest lamb I ever saw was 18 lbs!!!  And it was a first time lamber, too!  I wasn't there for the delivery, but my boss at the time checked on the ewes and saw the ewe lambing, but only the head was out.  It was swollen, since it must have been out for a little while.  He had to work hard to push the head back in so he could get the legs out, and luckily he was able to deliver that ewe lamb.  She was HUGE!!  Seeing an 18 lb lamb in the jugs next to other 9/10 lb lambs was pretty funny!


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## Remuda1 (Feb 7, 2012)

Bon, I was on high alert for signs of infection in her after that ordeal.  I did it sans glove and was in and out more than once.  Upon advice from the equine vet, we went ahead and gave a couple of Pen injections preemptively the few days following delivery.  Her discharge dried up and she seemed bright.  I was a little skeptical of just a couple of days of antibiotics so when her milk production seemed to decline a bit and the discharge returned and looked gnarly, I bought a bottle of Pen and flushed her with 15 ccs and then kept up with 6 cc per day for 5 days IM.  Was supposed to be 6 days, but I just didn't have the heart to stick her on the sixth day.  Her milk production came back up within 2 days and she was brighter and appetite was good.  She tore pretty good and may have had a slight prolapse.  If so, it was very slight and I just kept an eye on it.  She healed up great and you'd never know a thing now.  I mentioned all this to my feed store guy.... He told me that when he has to go into one of his cows like that, he inserts an interuterine bolus at that time while they are wide open from calving.  I got home and looked on Jeffers website and found them and they are labeled for sheep as well.  They are now in my barn cabinet, LOL.  As well as palpation gloves, lube, regular latex gloves....and numerous and sundry other items that I thought I may remotely need one day .  Hated using all of the antibiotic on her like that but I wanted to knock the hell out of the infection and be done with it.  The boluses are not antibiotic, they say they are antiseptic and some other word I can't remember right now but I will use them postlambing if I ever have to go into one again.

Aggie, I had no previous experience to compare the size of this lamb to but when I sent the pic to the BYH mentor, he was pretty surprised at the size too.  When you look at that picture its hard to imagine that THAT lamb came out of THAT ewe...  LOL, the second ewe that lambed the next morning (Christmas Eve morning), must've done great.  I MADE myself go into the house and give her time to get it done.  I kept checking on her and walking away.  The last time I went out, there was the lamb.... Now THAT's the kind of lambing I am looking forward to with the rest of them .  I have seven more total to get through for now.  I don't know if my stress level will remain at a healthy level for all of that . I am certain that this one did not weigh 18 pounds, but I would hazard a guess at about 12-14.  She's not a large ewe either.... 

With the third ewe, she lambed in afternoon.  When I went out, I found her in the paddock with TWO water bags hanging from her, LOL.  I emailed BYH mentor and asked "Does that mean two babies?"  When I saw the first baby's nose and hooves at the vulva, I THOUGHT I saw a kick way up at the ewes elbow and I thought "NOOOooooo!!"  LOL, I would have been REALLY happy with just one baby with an easy delivery .  After the ewe cleaned up the first one, she started pushing again and I (still deluding myself) thought "Well, that'll be the afterbirth". HA! Not.  The second baby presented with one leg back, horror of horrors.  She wasn't able to make any further progress other than getting the head out and the one hoof.  LOL, back into the house to scan my lambing book because I *thought* that I had seen that I might be able to get it out without pushing back in.  I got the forward leg's shoulder pulled forward and the baby slid right out.  She cleaned him up and he stood and nursed, all was well.  Went out the next morning and she had rejected him.  Just glad he got the colostrum BUT not glad about the lack of sleep from bottle feedings.  I got him a ewe bottle baby from a friend and they are both doing great.  

Please, please keep your fingers crossed for blissful, easy, uneventful lambings for us for the rest of this first lambing season, LOL


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## bonbean01 (Feb 7, 2012)

Thank you so much!  That was very helpful  So much to learn!!  Four years of sheep and learning something new all the time.

Wishing you easy birthing the rest of the lambing season!!!!


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## SheepGirl (Feb 7, 2012)

I would say that ewe is bred.

And WOW--that's a HUGE lamb! Largest we've had was a 21 lb--yes, TWENTY-ONE--lamb. She was 5/8 Babydoll Southdown 3/8 Montadale out of a 1/2 Babydoll 1/2 Montadale ewe. I have NO idea how she managed to get that big (especially since we didn't know mom was bred so she was fed a maintenance ration), but we had to pull her. She ended up getting fluid in her lungs and she died later at about two weeks old. I just remember she was a BIG BIG BIG lamb!


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## RemudaOne (Feb 8, 2012)

Hi Sheepgirl, these are dorpers so they're not super large sheep. I think I would scream in horror if I saw a 21 pound lamb trying to make it's way out of one of these . You know, I've got a friend who has about 50 dorper ewes. They're on pasture and the only time they get any supplemental nutrition was this summer during severe drought. His babies all look great. I try to keep that fact in my frontal lobe when feeding here and have started cutting back on rations for the three ewes that have already lambed. The two with older lambs are rarely allowing them to nurse anymore (and they still look a bit pregnant, lol) and the lambs are both creep feeding, the new mom still gets a bit more than those two although she's got more than enough milk since she rejected one of the twins.  I've decided that I'm not going to increase rations for the rest of the flock prior to lambing. They will still be getting a LOT more than my friends ewes so we'll see what happens. After all, one of the reasons I choose dorpers is their ability to thrive with little to no supplemental feed. Also, they have tons of grass now and since they are well fed, they're choosing to let it grow and just eat their alfalfa and feed rations :/ . Shouldn't be long before we see how the maintenance ration girls fare.


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