Day II: Daily chores

Hello again!
    The second day on the farm was mostly doing chores and moving sheep. Here the sheep are moved a lot. When they first lamb in the are put in what we call the 'lobby', it is temporary lambing jugs just so there is a place to put them close by to the pens, there the mothers clean off their lambs and pass the placenta.
     We try to move all the sheep in the lobby out to actual jugs by nightfall so any sheep that lamb during the night can hang out in there until morning. Once the lambs are old enough, the moms and lambs get put into another pen with other moms, then eventually they all go outside.
     There is a system. In the lambing jugs, the lambs get their ear tags and 1-2mL of vitamin E and the moms get a hoof trim, and if they are a yearling, they also get their adult numbers! On rare occasions, a ewe will lamb and if she only has one and nobody is head-butting or otherwise picking on the lamb, mom and baby are left in the big pen with all the pregnant ones.

and sometimes mom and baby are left alone.

    In the morning the sheep in the lambing jugs get water and hay, then we move sheep and watch for labor in the pens. After moving sheep and if there is no labor that needs our immediate attention we do other chores. There were a couple difficult births today. One lamb decided to come back feet first. That is a problem, especially if its a big ram with big horns. We were worried about it until I reached in and felt between the back legs to figure out the gender. And its a girl!! So we pulled her out back feet first, no problem. The other births were just big babies from small ewes.

Big friendly ram wanted to say Hi

This is Maria, named by Kristjan, Maria's 5 year old son, she was bottle-fed as a lamb and now is super friendly. She has a twin brother whose name is Kristjan, named by Kristjan. He is the same.

So I think that is all for today, nothing much happening just yet.

-Anastasia

P.S. I think Becca and I are writing posts at the same time (hehehehe)