Womwotai
Ridin' The Range
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2014
- Messages
- 140
- Reaction score
- 92
- Points
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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….
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….
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!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!! Nothing like a healthy very cute surprise like that!!!!!
