A Day In The (Lambing) Life

Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head

– A Day In The Life; Lennon/McCartney

2 am Friday April 16 – My fitbit alarm buzzes me awake.  I microwave lamb milk replacer to about 90 degrees in the kitchen and fill three 10-ounce glass bottles (recycled Schweppes tonic water) with about 4 ounces each.  Trudge up to the barn to feed triplets born to Thing One who has a golf-ball sized cyst on one teat and isn’t trying hard to get the other one to do full duty. That takes less than 10 minutes.  Check the pregnant ewes to see if any may be starting labor – nothing.  Back to bed at 2:20.

2:45 am – I go back up to the barn because I am hearing baaing and when I checked the lamb cam monitor, there were no ewes in the barn.  When I get there, all the ewes are back in the barn.  No signs of labor.  I go back to bed with earplugs in.

6 am – I stay in bed while Peg bottle feeds the triplets.

6:40 am – As I get out of bed, Peg comes in and says she has given hay to everyone (something I typically do in the morning).  Thanks, Peg.  Jack and I go down to the bottom of the driveway to fetch the paper.

7:30 am – Jack and I take a half hour walk through fields covered with about 4 inches of snow.  Peg leaves for the mill while we are out.

8:15 am – I check the barn, Stella (ewe 1925) has a “rope” coming out of her rear end.  I call Peg on my mobile and tell her just that.  She says she’ll be right back.  I get Stella isolated from the rest of the ewes.  Belle (ewe 1505) does not like this and she and Stella are baaing at each other across the fence.

8:45 am – Peg pulls out a big black ram lamb with a splotch of white on top of his head – 2116.

8:55 am – Peg pulls out another big black ram lamb – 2117.  We get them all moved into a jug.

9:15 am – Back in the kitchen, Peg says she is going back to the mill and says to me, “You’ll be back up there to check things at the 10 am feeding, right?”  I reply that I’ll probably go up a little before that to check on Stella and her new twins.

9:30 am – I get up to the barnyard and find two black lambs lying in the snow with two ewes licking them – Missy (ewe 1814 but her tag fell out) and Belle.  I get the lambs and the ewes isolated in the barn and call Peg; “Get up here as fast as you can” is all that I say and she gets it.  Now, which one of these ewes is the mom?  It’s Missy, BUT Belle has a short rope coming out her rear end.  I get Belle isolated and drench the twins (drench is basically molasses that we give about 3 cc to each newborn to give a little jolt of calories). One is a ram (2118), one is a ewe (2119). Peg shows up much quicker than I expected.

9:50 am – Belle is lying on the barn floor pushing.  A head and front legs poke out.  I pull out a large moorit ram – 2120.

10 am – Another head and front legs poke out.  I pull out a large black ewe – 2121.  While I’m working with Belle, Peg is tending to Missy and her twins. They are not standing.  Peg checks the temperature of one, its barely 98 degrees; 102 to 103 is normal.  We quickly discuss our options:  1) get them under a heat lamp and put a tube into their stomach to feed them 60 cc of warm colostrum; 2) take them into the kitchen for both the tubing and heat pads and towels to warm them up from the inside and the outside.  I say we shouldn’t mess around with option 1 and we each take a lamb back into the house.  We put them on towels on the kitchen table, turn on an electric heating pad and microwave two additional heating pads.  While I stand over them, Peg warms colostrum.  She puts the tube down each throat (praying not to put it down the windpipe by mistake) and I slowly push the plunger of a 60 cc syringe connected to the tube.

Once that is done, we agree she will tend the twins while I go back to the barn to rearrange things.  We’ll need to put Belle and Missy and their lambs into jugs.  Which means we need to move some moms and lambs out of jugs.  Since we’re moving two sets, I need to tag the lambs first so we know which lambs go with which moms.  First I tag 2114 and 2115, who were born to Arya (ewe 1705) on Wednesday evening. Then I shoo them out and escort Belle and her twins into their jug.  Next I tag 2109 and 2110, who were born to Genny (ewe 1905) and shoo them out.  All the while Missy is baaing and wondering where her lambs went.

Around this time, Peg calls on the walkie talkie that one of the lambs is ready to come back up.  A few minutes later she hands me the lamb and I use it to entice Missy to walk into the newly vacated jug.  Not much later, Peg brings up the second lamb and I put it in with Missy.  We tie off the umbilical cords on all four lambs, dip the stubs in iodine.  Back in the house by 11 am.

11:10 am – Peg goes back to the mill for the third time, I go take a shower.

11:30 am – I do a barn check and everyone is fine.  Danny (ewe 1802) is bellowing for her twins, but they are lying together in the back of the barn.  I pick up Stella’s placenta and toss it in the woods.  Back in the garage I put together heat box #5 (in case we need to add a jug).

Noon – I toss out the placentas of Missy and Belle.  Everyone is doing well.

2 pm – I do the triplet bottle feeding.

5 pm – Peg is home and goes up to give the ewes their daily allotment of grain.

6 pm – Peg does the triplet feeding.

9 pm – We go to bed.

10 pm – Peg gets up and does the triplet feeding.

2 am Saturday April 17 – My fitbit alarm buzzes me awake. When I get to the barn with the bottles, I find Leinie (ewe 1916) with two white lambs (ram 2122, ewe 2123) standing by her.  I drench one, but the other is sucking on Leinie’s teat.  I call several times to Peg on the walkie talkie but get no response.  As I walk out into the barnyard, I see the bedroom light is on.  When she gets to the barn she asks if I was calling her. Yes. She only heard a clicking sound on the walkie talkie in the bedroom.

Again, we need to vacate a jug.  Thing One and her triplets must move out.  The other three jugs are filled by lambs born less than 24 hours earlier.  We don’t need to tag the white triplets, we’ll do that later.  We get Leinie and her twins in the jug, snip and dip the twins, and go back to the house.

I put new batteries in the walkie talkies and go to bed.

– Todd