Day 11: Fast Learners

The view out the front window of the Lancer on our way to Borganes.

 Yesterday was rough. We made sure to take plenty of lamb breaks, and on Snaedis's insistence, an afternoon trip to Borganes, where we had a nice meal and visited the Egil's Saga exhibit at the Settlement Museum. It was both fascinating and a little bit disturbing (When he was only 7, Egil killed a kid who beat him at ice hockey. His mother was proud).

The view from inside a group pen.

What are you looking at?

A leader lamb, with what's possibly its permanent facial expression.

This vicious brute mauled my boots.

Then she went for my coveralls as a second course.

During our night shift, something unpleasant but well timed occurred. I went to check the position of the lamb of a ewe who was not progressing, and there was no room in there for me to move my hand and feel around. She was dry, swollen, and I could not feel any legs. Grace and Snaedis's mother also investigated and had no idea what was going on. It took Helgi to extricate the lambs. He believes the first lamb was coming neck first, legs in a tangle, but even he isn't certain. He had to pull the second lamb in line before he could extricate that one. Typically, lambs assist in their own births by positioning themselves correctly when possible, with their front legs forward (often, if you pick up a very young lamb, its instinct is to throw its legs up in the air above their head, which is deeply adorable). Because the first lamb was in such a bizarre position, it is likely he died shortly before his mother's labor rather than during the delivery. The second lamb was alive when Helgi pulled her out, but she could not take her first breath despite our assistance, likely due to the long and difficult delivery. Instead of remaining in shock, the ewe was eager to lick her babies, which made me think she would pull through herself.

So we had a ewe who, despite her terrible ordeal, and losing her own two lambs, was ready to be a mother. And we had two leader lambs who that very day had been orphaned. So we adopted Kruna's babies to this ewe. She has no idea what she's in for!

Flash forward to today. The ewe and her two adopted babies are getting along great. The only slight hitch is they are too tall to nurse from her easily! Carly took some time and got the lambs to lay on their knees when nursing. An hour later, she asked me to check on them. All it took was a slight nudge in the direction of the udder and they were nursing like Carly taught them to! A day old and they're already showing leader sheep smarts.

Kruna's lambs, seen here as motion blurs.

Leader sheep will climb anything.

It was a relatively calm day, especially compared with yesterday. Grace and Carly repainted the ewes carrying singles and triplets with pink and green marking chalk, respectively. It is important to know how many lambs a ewe is having. If she's having one, a lamb in need can be adopted to her, and this is most likely to be effective if done before her own lamb is born. In the case of triplets, it's good to know to expect three! During this process Grace finally spied the mythical creature Carly and I had both mentioned to her.

We dubbed her "Lowrider"

Seen here next to ewes of more normal proportions.

Will the babies be lowriders as well? Only time will tell.

Later that day, she gave birth to two lovely babies. Grace and I managed to extricate a lamb with massive hornbuds from another ewe. And a yearling gave birth to a beautiful moorit (brown) lamb, only the third this year.

That explains why she was grumpy.

Two lambs that ran up to Grace and I earlier. We believe they may be orphans that were adopted out.