Remuda1-Haps and Mishaps at KB Farms - Poor little Lambies ;)

[RemudaOne]

Bottle lambs are back in the garage tonight to make more room for the flock to sleep in the barn where the ground is dry. Its like soup out there and I live on a hill with a lot of rock. It's just a nasty mess. I don't think the lambs mind at all but will definitely be ready to head back outside in the morning. At least I won't have to slog through it to feed them at 5:00 a.m. now.

Tomorrow we'll t be trying to trim some hooves. It will be my first time trimming sheep hooves but I think we'll be okay. Third ewe is still holding on tight to that lamb. I really thought she'd have it today since the weather was lambing weather. The new twins are bright and growing like fire. Mom's doing great as well. The ewe that lost her lamb is drying up nicely. She's the one I placed a bolus in and as of today, there is still no sign of infection. She only rarely calls out to her lamb now. She's doing good. I'm going to try to make it over to my friends house tomorrow to take pics of his flock and pastures. I want to post pics to show how well his ewes and lambs do with no supplemental feed, and pretty slim pickings on the pasture too. Good night for now.

 

[Remuda1]

Just another wacko day here at KB Farms. I've been watching one of my ewes closely for about a week now because lambing has been eminent. So, I go do all the barn and livestock chores this morning and when I am finishing up, I notice that she's in early stage labor out in the maternity paddock. Lovely , I've got a doctor's appointment 50 miles away and hubby left yesterday for a business trip. All I could do was leave and hope for the best.

Rushed home and she had pushed out a water bag but no sign of nose or hooves. She progressed nicely and nose and TWO hooves appeared shortly (thank you Lord). It was a large lamb, but she had it on her own (thanks again Lord). So I'm all happy and snapping pictures and all when I notice that there are two BACK legs popping in and out of her vulva like a jack in the box. They were still inside that sack and one would pop out then go back in, then they would both pop out and go back in, etc. It definitely did not look *right*. The hooves were very very small. At this point the ewe is still cleaning the first baby, so I strolled over and took hold of the two legs and when the ewe stepped off, the baby slid right out. If the ewe had coughed, she would have squirted this baby right out. It was that small. It was as if it was premature. But the first lamb was definitely full term and robust. Anyhow, the second lamb had soft, soft hooves, was parrot mouthed and had what looked like an umbilical hernia. It was obvious that it was not going to make it but I didn't want it to suffer so I stepped away to get my pistol. When I returned in about 3 minutes, it was already gone (thank you again Lord for not making me do that). I did take a picture of it and posted it in the Sheep birthing forum. It's not awful or anything, but a couple of folks there wanted to see it. I put warnings about a graphic pic just in case someone didn't care to see it. You can find it there if you're inclined.

The ewe took about 4 hours to expel the first placenta because after the lambing there was only about 8-10 inches hanging out of her. Called my vet and he said to gently pull but stop if it felt like it was going to break. I got it a bit further out and the ewe started pushing again and she was able to get the large lambs placenta out. BUT she still had a short piece hanging out of her and it didn't feel like it wanted to come without breaking. Called the vet back, he told me what to do and I came to the house to get stuff. When I got back down there, she was passing the second placenta and managed to get rid of all of it by herself.

I think we'll have probably 3 weeks or so before the next ewe is ready to lamb. That's okay with me . I've got four more to go and we'll be done for this lambing. It was a gorgeous day here. I think it got to about 75, I was in capris and a t-shirt with sandals. Nice preview of spring but I think my peach tree will be completely budded out by the middle of next week and our average last freeze isn't until the middle of next month. I'll be really disappointed if I don't get any peaches this year. We missed out completely last year . The rest of the week is supposed to be really nice too. Time to get some outdoor work done. Gotta go get the bottle lamb's dinner ready, until next time.....

 

[Remuda1]

Fed bottle lambs at 5:00 this morning and checked on new mom and lamb. They both seemed to be resting easily. Bottle babies are growing so quickly. I'll be glad when they start eating more solids though. I've started letting them spend time out in the maternity paddock unsupervised after I feed them during the day. I've found that if I do it after I feed them, the little ram is less likely to bother the new moms by trying to nurse from them. Although, he does manage to sneak a sip once in a while. The little ewe has better manners and learned quickly with the moms butting her away. She rarely tries anything with them. The lamb races are in full swing and are so fun to watch. The moms get all bent out of shape when the lambs head behind the barn and start calling to them and running around trying to find them, lol .

Had wanted to keep the ewe that lost her lamb up another week or so in the maternity paddock with the moms but she made my mind up to turn her out with the flock yesterday when she started butting the week old babies around in the lambing pen when I put them up for the night... What a cow.

Been having pain in my left arm (not heart attack kinda pain though), so I went to the dr. yesterday. I guess I have tendinitis in it. The doctor asked if I could "rest" it :/ . Hubby is scheduled for rotator cuff surgery on the first so that's not likely. He prescribed a cortisone pack (6 pills first day, five the second, etc) once that's done, 30 days of another anti-inflammatory. Could be a lot worse.... I thought it might be rotator cuff on me as well. Took the first of the cortisone pills this morning and I hope to feel some relief by this evening or tomorrow morning.

It's supposed to get to 78 here today. Amazing, hope we don't have to pay for it with late season freezes! A few years ago we had snow on Easter! Lol, that was a shock to the system. I remember that the hummingbirds were already here and I kept the feeders full for them. They were at them hard until the weather warmed up. Well, time to get the day under way. More later.

 

[Remuda1]

What a nice day it was. I think it got up to 79 or 80. Ewes and lambs lazing in the shade, new mama and baby doing just fine. Tomorrow will be thier first day out in the maternity paddock as it got pretty warm in the barn today even though there was a good breeze blowing. This lamb is tall and gangly.

I took some pictures of the other babies as well. These are the two bottle lambs. The one on the left is the ram twin that was rejected by mom and the other one is the little ewe bottle baby that I got from a friend to keep him company.

I feel a little sorry for the twin that the mom kept. She SO enjoys spending time with her brother and adopted sister that she almost forgets about her mother. Of course, the mother bleats and bleats to call her and the lamb just ignores her.
Sorry about my shadow in the next one. This is the twins in front and the little adoptee closest to the camera. She is SO sweet where the little ram is all obnoxious and in your face.

The next picture is just for fun, lol

 

[HankTheTank]

Soooo, where exactly are those lambs located? You don't really have to tell me, it would just make it MUCH easier for when I swoop down and snatch them They're adorable!!

 

[Remuda1]

Almost missed this one. Noticed the ewe in labor in the paddock when I went to give the bottle lambs their last bottle for the night. We got her up into a makeshift pen and she had a nice ewe lamb.

Shuffled sheep and lambs around a little bit and got her bedded down in a jug

Mom and lamb doing well.

 

[Remuda1]

HTT, I would tell you but then...Well you know how the rest of that goes .

Glad we were able to find that last ewe in labor since it's 34 degrees right now. All of mine are first time lambers so I don't know if mom would have been fast/thorough enough with cleaning it up and drying it off to keep it warm enough. At least the wind is dead calm out there. I just walked down there with a flashlight and they are both doing fine as far as I could see. The ewe didn't oblige me by turning around so that I could see her backside, but she looked bright enough.

This ewe really snuck up on me. I had just noticed yesterday morning "Wow, her udder is really looking ready" and told my husband yesterday evening that when we work some of the sheep this morning, "I need to keep that one ewe up in the maternity paddock, she has snuck up on me." LOL, so I guess she showed me. I thought I still had a day or two. So that makes 9 lambs (including one adoptee) all together with 7 being similar in age/size. The two older ones and the little ewe lamb that wasn't rejected by her mom are now living with the main flock. I've run out of room in the lambing barn..... Not a good thing. It's only my first lambing season and I've already got to expand. Wonder how hubby is going to feel about that little tidbit????

I woke up at 3:30 a.m. and decided to check on the sheep. Came back in and started on some office work and thought I'd update this thread a little bit. Guess I'll get back to the office work now

 

[Roll farms]

Verrry pretty lambs. Congrats!

 

[Remuda1]

Thank you Roll, it's nice to have one less lambing to think about. I love the way the paddock looks when all the babies are out in it. I could watch all day

 

[jodief100]

What nice looking lambs. Congratulations on your first lambings.