Lambing at Sunrise

Sheeps & Peeps8 Comments

(Traveling back in time to May 5th)  Sometimes it seems that things happen for a reason.  Had Meara not pushed out a water bag at 12:15 a.m.; had she pushed out that first lamb earlier than 5:30 a.m.; this beautiful, foggy sunrise would not have been witnessed from the pasture.
The sky looked pretty clear to the north, but the fog began to come up the hollow from Wolf Creek, enveloping the pasture and continuing to roll across the hayfield.  Light filled the sky and the air was filled with a lovely, rosey pink glow.  The misty fog remained, clinging to the ground… the color in the sky intensified and the sun rose high enough to be seen above the fog… a bright golden globe… SUNRISE!

Weekly Top Shot

Sheeps & Peeps7 Comments

We’re sharing a peek at one of Juliet’s twins, little Miss 1206, who along with her sister is enjoying the move to larger quarters this week.  We’re not quite confident in Juliet’s abilities to keep track of twins so she and her twins along with Daisy and her triplets will be building mothering skills in a separate temporary paddock.
Joining The View From Right Here for the Weekly Top Shot. Thanks for the invitation!

Done

Sheeps & Peeps3 Comments

Our final planned lamb was born Friday evening.  He is a beauty!  A silver, black Coopworth – Border Leicester cross out of Hebe and Liam.  Weighing in at 13 lbs 1 oz, he is a whopper!  Now the wait is on to see if Blackberry, our old girl who escaped into the breeding pen, got caught.  We sure hope not, but we’ve got a few more weeks to find out for sure.
Many thanks to our Mom for all her help in the barn this lambing season… feeding hay, filling water buckets, feeding Robbie and much more.  This was a tough one to get through.  But we are excited to say that we didn’t lose a single lamb (close a couple times), didn’t have to pull a single lamb, and all the ewes came through great.  We are feeling very blessed.

Days Five through Eighteen

Sheeps & Peeps4 Comments

With apologies to both the reader and our wonderful breeding ewes, we are sharing these days of the lambing season in a slide show.  We still have one straggler.  Hebe has not yet lambed, but here are the rest of the 2012 lambs. Each ewe and their lambs are very different… some ewes won’t eat for hours, others get up and eat between every contraction… really every birth has its own story… here are just a few…
Julie and Jill each had their second twin almost two hours after the first; Julie having her first at 10 p.m. and her second at 11:55 p.m., coming within 5 minutes of being our first ewe to have lambs born on two different days.
Rosey and Princess had their lambs right beside each other in the barn, each continuing to try to take the other’s lamb because that was the first one seen after that final push.
Athena’s second-born whose sack did not open at all, hit the ground fully enclosed and had to have it torn open; had taken a breath inside, had to be worked on for nearly an hour; but is doing great after spending days under the heat lamp.
Meara pushed out her first water bag at 12:30 a.m. but did not get her first twin pushed out until 5:15 a.m.; allowing the shepherdess to enjoy both the gigantic full moon and a beautiful foggy, pink dawn.  Her lambs were perhaps our most vigorous, loudly baaing before their back legs were fully pushed out.
Hera, our mother of several sets of twins and two sets of triplets, had a big, single ram this year; all the way at the bottom of the hill… again.
For the shepherdess/s, each birth is a miracle… when the lamb hits the ground, takes that first breath, lifts its little head and shakes it, then that first baa… oh my… sometimes we see it, sometimes we only hear it if the lambing field is really busy, but each time it is a tug at your heartstrings… a miracle.