First Lamb of 2016

This weekend the farm hosted 15 alumni of a co-ed a cappella group from Tufts University – The Amalgamates.  We gave everyone who wanted barnyard tours on both Saturday and Sunday.  Some of the ladies were actually friendly – Jewel (2013 lamb), YooHoo (2014), and Martha’s 2015 lamb Belle. The mothers-in-waiting are getting to be big, and slow.  As lambing approaches they spend more of their time lying down on the hay covered barn floor, and if we move real slowly, they tend to be less skittish. Many of our visitors were hoping to see a lamb or two before they left.

We decided to start barn checks on Saturday night, and I pulled the first 2 a.m. visit. While I had installed the two lamb cams (one ‘Mate coined a better term – lambera) on Saturday, they really don’t show the whole picture, so a quick trip to the barn is best.  I know most, if not all, of the ‘Mates were still awake when I headed out, but they were up in the apartment out of earshot.

Sunday night, after watching Jordan Spieth’s 30 minute meltdown, and savoring a dinner of ridiculously delicious beef brisket and yummy potatoes au gratin, Peg went off to bed pretty early, and I found myself snoozing on the living room rug next to Jack. Since it was her turn to do the 2 a.m. visit, I just had to do a quick check before heading to bed.  Around 10 p.m., I rose from the floor, asked Jack if he wanted to go outside, grabbed a flashlight, and we headed up to the barn.

Often I’ll just scan things with the flashlight, but this time I decided to turn on the barn lights. Most of the ewes scattered out of the barn, but way back in the furthest corner was a little black blob with a single ewe being reluctant to join the mass exodus. Our first lamb of 2016!

I rushed back to the house, opened the front door and yelled “Peg, we’ve got a lamb!” a couple times until I heard her answer.  I asked her to get Jack back in the house as I ran back to the barn.  First thing – get mom and lamb confined in a jug.  I quickly moved two panels into position so that mom couldn’t leave her baby. By this time Peg is in the barn with the toolbox full of lambing supplies. We secured the jug and I got the three heat lamp boxes out of the shed.  Why all three?  Who knows which one will actually work when we plugged it in? We set up the panels in the corner of the barn so that mom and lamb were now confined in an 8 foot square jug. Peg filled a Home Depot bucket with water, and I placed a wooden box hay-feeder-for-one in one corner. In less than 5 minutes things were all set. Next Peg filled a syringe with drench – essentially molasses full of calories – most of which I squirted in the lamb’s mouth.

Now, what about this baby? He (Peg later confirmed) was small! We have weighed some newborns in the past, but what’s the point? I’d say he was about 4 pounds, maybe 5. He was clean and dry, so mom – who by now we know is Cedar from her eartag number – did an excellent job of licking him clean.  He also could stand on his own, which probably put birth at about 9 p.m. , maybe even earlier. He had the right instincts for trying to find a teat, but both of us are too impatient to watch and wait. We agreed to try to help him.

While I held Cedar still against the barn wall, Peg squatted down, picked up the ram lamb and tried to get him to suck on one of her very large teats. A small mouth and a large teat are not necessarily the best combination, but Peg got him to take some for a few minutes. After that, we dipped his broken umbilical cord in iodine, tied it off with a piece of string, and there wasn’t much left for us to do but let nature take its course. We were back in the house by 10:30. Peg, with her 2 a.m. shift now having additional meaning, headed straight to bed.  I poured a few fingers of Jack Daniels, sat on the floor leaning against a post in the kitchen with Jack, and toasted the first of many 2016 Savage Hart Farm lambs.

Todd