All Consuming Adventures in Lambing

Sorry for not adding any new posts in a week. I have been consumed, literally, if you take into account how many meals I have missed or put off, by this first round of lambing. There are only thirteen ewes in the first round, but because these new (to me) high production sheep needed closer nutritional management than I gave them during late gestation (especially minerals with which I was extremely lax), I am dealing with a lot of weak lambs, which means that I have spent a lot of time making sure they are eating and keeping warm, not to mention feeding my two (now three — see below) bottle babies every four to six or so hours around the clock (last feeding at 10pm, first feeding at 4am).

I have been up since 2:15am when I fed the most recently added bottle lamb, who is currently a house lamb, spending some time in a large quilt lined Tupperware container in my bedroom closet because there is a radiator in there so it is nice and cozy. It is now 4:30am, and I just got back from feeding the bottle lambs that are down in the barn, where all is well. The newest lambs were able to stay warm enough through the night, and all four of them were up and about when I entered the barn.

The newest little bottle lamb, a ewe lamb, one of triplets, was born very weak yesterday evening. She had not been delivered soon enough. For some reason, with that lamb, the ewe had very weak contractions. The lamb was actually in there for so long that it passed its meconium poop while still in the ewe. When it came out it was covered in dark dark slime and bits and pieces of chunky black gunk. The ewe tended to the lamb, but the lamb was weak. I gave it a half an hour, but after that I called my sheep mentor (who has been invaluable to me over the past two weeks) and she said that the lamb was probably already starting to get chilled (and she was, her feet were freezing, although her mouth was not yet ice cold), so I would need to take her up to the house, warm her in a water bath, and then tube her. I had already planned on tubing her, so I had milked some colostrum from the ewe.

After warming the lamb in the hot water bath, Jen and I dried her off and then tubed her. The first couple of tries the tube went into the lambs lungs, but on the third or fourth try, the lamb swallowed just at the right time and it pulled the tube down into the esophagus and after a few more swallows, into the stomach. I knew, because the tube went in much further than it could have if it were in the lungs, that the tube was in the stomach, but I was still nervous as hell. The last thing I wanted to do was drown the lamb. Regardless, it needed to be done, and Jen and I were going to need to do it. I attached the warmed syringe full of colostrum to the tube and pulled the plunger out so the colostrum would slowly gravity feed down the tube. I got about an ounce and a half in and then pulled the syringe out and after a second, the tube, hoping that no liquid spilled into the lungs on the way out.

“If it had been in her lungs, she’d be dead, right?” Jen asked after a couple of minutes. She was holding the lamb to her chest, wrapped in a towel, gently breathing on its head to keep it warm and calm. She paced slowly around the kitchen.

“I think so,” I said. “It was in the stomach, definitely. When you go into the lungs the tube only goes in a few inches, and you can hear the breathing coming out of the tube. It went in far enough. It was in the stomach.”

While Jen held the lamb, I set to getting the tupperware motel set up in the closet, but the tupperware came out of the garage, so we needed to let it sit in the closet for a few minutes to warm up. Then we put the lamb in and sat down to eat our cold pizza. When Jen had left to pick up the pizza I was down in the barn and she had no idea she would find me in the kitchen with a slimy lamb submerged up to its nose in hot water in the kitchen sink when she got back. She took it in stride, as she does.

After about twenty minutes, Jen and I went to check on the lamb. She was standing and stumbling around the tupperware trying to suck on every fold of the quilt that she came across. She had made it! She is still at risk of pneumonia from possibly ingesting amniotic fluid while in the birth canal, but she had made it.

Jen and I warmed the last couple ounces of the ewe’s colostrum we had left, and I tried to get the lamb to take the bottle. I couldn’t do it. I don’t have the touch. I am too rough. I act too much like, “here’s the damn bottle you stupid lamb, now drink it!” I can’t help it. That’s just the way I am, and eventually I have been able to get all of the lambs I have tried to on the bottle. But, in this case, I felt we were pressed for time, so I asked Jen to do it. She has a way with animals (she has an amazing grasp of animal psychology and behavior) and a much softer and calmer demeanor towards them than I do. Within seconds, she had the lamb drinking from the bottle.

While she was feeding the lamb, I was in the front hall putting my boots and stuff on to go back down to the barn to check on the ewe, who I was worried was in trouble because she had been absolutely huge. I had been expecting triplets, and had only gotten a single. I was worried there were dead lambs inside of her. I was also going down to check on the other ewe and her two lambs that had been delivered at the same time. That ewe had actually had triplets, but one was born with a beating heart, but she was not breathing. Her lips and tongue were blue. I tried to get her breathing, but it didn’t work. I even tried mouth-to-mouth. After a couple of minutes, her heart stopped beating and she was dead. The remaining two (both rams), however, were fine.

When I stepped into the barn, I was amazed. The ewe with the bottle lamb that I had been worried about was fine, and in the couple of hours I had been up at the house taking care of her first lamb, she had delivered two more lambs, both of which were reasonably vigorous. I went into the pen to check on them. One had gotten a drink, but the other one hadn’t.

The ewe and I had had quite a battle earlier in the evening when I needed to milk out some colostrum, and she had already been through a lot with her first difficult delivery, and for all I knew some trouble with the next two as well, but, that lamb that hadn’t gotten a drink needed to, so I pinned the ewe in the corner of the stall with my head and shoulder, grabbed the lamb, and put her in position. She searched for the nipple, but couldn’t quite find it. I tried to help by guiding the nipple to her mouth. We kept missing, but then, after a few minutes, she latched on, and started sucking and sucking and sucking and sucking and sucking…..holy cow!….and sucking and sucking and on and on she went. I was amazed. Part of the reason that she was able to nurse for so long is that the ewe, tag RK1, apparently milks like crazy. Other than the turned out teats, her udder looks more like a goat’s than a sheep’s. After what seemed like an eternity, the little lamb let the nipple slide out of her mouth. I felt her belly and she had definitely drank a lot. Then, since I had the ewe pinned anyway, I picked up the other lamb and got him to latch on as well. He didn’t suckle as long as the ewe lamb.

When I went down to the barn, I had taken a measuring cup with me. I was going to milk the ewe out and get some more colostrum for the house lamb. However, when I saw the two new babies, I paused. I thought perhaps I should just use replacer for the house lamb and leave all of the natural colostrum for the babies she was nursing. Plus, I didn’t want to stress her out any more than I already had. However, while I had her pinned, I felt the other side of her udder and it was still engorged, so since I had her pinned anyway, I decided to milk some more colostrum out for the house lamb. I took four ounces, which once fed, would make eight total of natural colostrum consumed by the house lamb, enough to confer the necessary immunity and using the last two ounces, mix with replacer to help make the transition. But, I wasn’t done. Before letting go of the ewe, I put the little ewe lamb back in position and she went back to town, finding the nipple much faster this time. She didn’t nurse as long the first time, but she still drank a lot. Then I released the ewe, a little pissed, but none the worse for wear.

I had lost track of time, so I was surprised when Jen showed up in the barn with the two bottles for the bottle lambs. It was 9:30pm. I had been with the ewe and then her lambs since 3pm when she first started to go into labor.

Jen and I fed the bottle lambs, snickering and commenting on their enthusiasm and madly wagging tails as always, and then we went back up to the house. I asked Jen to feed the house lamb again just to make sure it went well, and it did. She drank two ounces right down.

I set the alarm for 12am to feed the bottle lamb again, but it didn’t go off because I was so tired that I accidentally set it for 12pm. I did wake up on my own at 2am, so I got up to feed the house lamb. After Jen’s two bottle feedings, the lamb recognized the bottle and took right to it. She drank the last two ounces of ewe colostrum and was clearly still hungry, so I mixed up a batch of colostrum replacer, adding it to the remnants of the ewe colostrum that were in the measuring cup, maybe half an ounce, hoping that it would mask the taste difference. She drank three ounces of the colostrum replacer.

It is now 5:30am and time to feed the house lamb again. After this last feeding of colostrum replacer, I will switch her over to regular milk replacer. As long as she doesn’t get pneumonia, and I actually don’t think she will, her breathing, which had been raspy in those first few hours, is now clear, she should be fine.

So far, eight out of the thirteen ewes have lambed and have delivered eighteen lambs, of which sixteen are currently alive. One died of hypothermia when the ewe delivered twins outside before I penned them up, and one of the triplets born (a nice sized ewe lamb) yesterday evening was born with a beating heart, but was not breathing and died after a couple of minutes in spite of my efforts to get her breathing. My current lamb delivery rate is 225%. That is, on average, my ewes are delivering 2.25 lambs each. There have been three sets of triplets, four sets of twins, and one single. Subtracting the two dead lambs, and assuming that all of the lambs currently living make it to weaning, my weaned lamb rate, as of right now, will be 200%, or two lambs per ewe. In contrast, my weaned lamb rate last year from twenty three ewes from a non-prolific breed was 125%, or 1.25 lambs per ewe.

Over the past two weeks I have for the first time

• Brought two lambs back to life in warm water baths
• Successfully tube fed a lamb
• Unsuccessfully given mouth to mouth (it was good practice though)
• Corrected a badly presented lamb by pushing the lamb back into the birth canal, fishing around for the front leg that was bent backwards, and slowly, carefully pulling it forward
• Watched a ewe deliver a breeched lamb on her own as I rushed into the barn to help when I heard her screaming. As I crossed the barn to help her, she hunkered down, pushed like hell, screamed once more, and shot that backwards lamb right out of her backside.

There are five ewes to go in this round, and I would just like to let them know that I have had enough lambing adventures for the time being. Let’s just have five sets of nice vigorous, easily delivered lambs that require no interventions on my part, ‘k?

 

Rough Couple of Days

So this little cold snap has been rough on the lambs and the shepherd.

Yesterday I had to bring in another lamb due to hypothermia. There was a set of twins born on Friday, and while they did fine at first, the male went hypothermic yesterday. His body temperature in the barn was about 99° and he was starting to crash, so I had no choice but to bring him in. Unlike the lamb from the other day, whose temperature barely registered on the thermometer, I got to this guy much sooner, so I didn’t need to give him a hot water bath. I just placed him in a box by the radiator with the lid set so that it pulled the hot air into the box. He warmed up pretty quickly and took a drink. I would have liked to have put him right back out after getting him warmed up, but it is just too cold, and, more importantly, I suspect the ewe might not have enough milk to nurse twins. I plan to put him back out later this morning after it has warmed up a bit. I hope the ewe doesn’t reject him, especially since I didn’t take both of the lambs from her. I will continue to bottle feed him after he has been returned to the ewe.

The male’s sister’s temperature at the time was only 100 (normal is 102-103) and she was shivering, but she was more active and was still nursing, so I left her in the barn, but gave her a heat lamp. She started to do better as soon as I removed her brother, which increases my suspicion that the ewe doesn’t have enough milk. As of this morning, she is no longer shivering while under the heat lamp. I will raise the heat lamp up a bit when I go down to feed after the sun comes up and then turn it off completely when it warms up later today.

The rest of the lambs have become more or less acclimated to the cold. They are nursing a lot, which is helping to keep them warm. I was worried about one of them because he seemed a bit groggy, but his mouth was warm and his temperature was normal, so I left him alone.

Thankfully no new lambs were born yesterday and none were born last night, and based on my 3am inspection, it looks like none will be born this morning. After this morning the temperature will range from the mid-teens to the high twenties for the next ten days, which, while still cold, is a much better range for lambing than -6 to 1! Once it warms up, I wouldn’t mind having the nine bagged up ewes lamb in pretty quick succession to get this first round over with.

I’ve got tails to dock, but I didn’t want to stress the lambs out in the cold, so I plan to do it tomorrow. That will give them all a day to recover from the cold snap if they need it.

 

Odysseus is Home

[Note: There are two posts for today, so if you are interested in seeing both of them, scroll down to the next one after this one.]

I just bundled up and walked down to the barn to check on the lambs. The actual air temperature is -6F and the windchill is supposed to be -20F. However, the wind did not blow anywhere near as hard as was predicted. It was supposed to keep blowing through the night like it did all day yesterday, that is at about a steady 15-20 MPH. I woke up at 12:30am and it looked and sounded reasonably calm outside the window. Nevertheless, -6 is cold, and as I mentioned in the other post from this morning the lamb barn is uninsulated and draftier than it should be, so if it isn’t also -6 in the barn, it is probably pretty close.

The moon is close to full and there were only a few clouds in the sky, so I was able to walk down to the barn without the use of my headlamp. I listened to the rhythmic crunch of my boots and felt the cold air on my cheeks while I walked.

All was well in the lamb barn. I am often frustrated by animals’ lack of the faculty of rationality. One of the triplets (sibling to the house lamb — see the other post from this morning below) was sleeping with its side against the cinder block wall of the barn. There was plenty of bedding that it could have been nestled in, but instead, it was against cold stone. Regardless, the lamb was fine, but I wanted it and its other sibling that was sleeping snuggled up against the one with its side against the cinder block, to get up and nurse just in case the one against the wall was getting chilled. They hopped right up and started nursing, and as I looked around at the rest of the lambing pens, the other four lambs were also nursing.

It looks like there will be no new lambs born today. The nine bagged up ewes that had spent the night penned up in the barn just stared at me, some of them chewing their cud.

After making sure that all of the lambs were okay and that there weren’t any new ones, I kind of lingered in the doorway for a minute before starting to walk back up to the house.

While walking up the road toward the house, I realized — again because I have realized it many times over the past few years — that no matter the circumstances, there is no place I would rather be than farming. After circulating from one idea and grand plan to the next for the better part of twenty years, I have finally found a life that suits me. Sure, it is a difficult life. There is heartache and backache. There are long hours and even the biggest holidays are more or less just another day on the farm. But, it is the most satisfying, purposive, and rewarding thing I have ever done with my life.

I am at home on the farm, where really, objectively speaking after just a few years, I am still very much a stranger, and I am at home in my own skin as a farmer. I no longer feel like I am acting, playing a part, circulating through all of the endless possibilities that are available to people born into material lives as rich as my own.

There is no place I’d rather be than in a lambing barn at 2:45 in the morning when it is -6 degrees, even if, and this is really it, even if what I were to find in the barn would be a lamb or a ewe in trouble, or even worse, dead. Those sorts of heartaches, those sorts of crises are an integral part of my existence now. I am as much at home in them as I am in the joy and thrill of watching healthy thriving lambs bounce about and go on lamb races round and round the barnyard with their friends, or in watching a perfectly healthy lamb slide out of a ewe exactly as it should while listening to the ewe gurgle, grunt, and murmur her welcomes and hellos to her offspring while licking the wet slime off of it.

Odysseus is home. I made it. So many times, I can’t tell you how many, I thought I was a goner, but I made it, I finally, really made it home, safe and sound.