Day 2: Hail Yes

Looking pretty done with this nonsense.

For Grace and I, barn chores started at 11:00am. The weather was rather spectacularly unpleasant. Initially there were just strong winds, but then there was snow, fierce enough that when I looked up from the sheep and out a window, there was just whiteness. Ear tagging and moving of sheep commenced as usual. Sadly, our worst fears about the sickly lamb from yesterday were realized-- she had watery mouth, which is an opportunistic E-coli infection, and unfortunately is not treatable after a certain stage (she had received antibiotics earlier, but to no avail). She was euthanized because she was trembling and seizing and there was no reason to prolong that. The orphans must not have had healing powers, but they did snuggle with her in her last few hours, and I like to think that helped.

That was depressing, so here's a picture of the farm's cat cuddling up near me.

During a lull in activity, I got some grain and tried making friends with Becca Jr., a spunky leadersheep. I've been informed that if I'm friends with Becca Jr. things will be much easier for me. I got her to take some grain and was able to scratch her head, so hopefully that's progress.

It's also quite possible she just wanted to spite Grace.

Becca's mother Kruna, meanwhile, doesn't shun anyone as long as they have grain.

Mostly wishful thinking, but the black spot on this ewe lamb's back as well as her facial markings reminded me a little of Fiddlehead back at Witter Farm.

Later, I found myself having difficulty helping a ewe deliver a large lamb. I flagged down Snaedis, who showed me her patented method wherein she puts a loop over the lamb's head, puts her foot in the other end of the loop and uses that to apply pressure, leaving her hands free to help loosen the vaginal opening and anything else to help the lamb out. I wish I had a picture of that, but it took her mere seconds to pop the lamb out, it seemed. It was rather awe-inspiring.

I had a good laugh later when I was making the rounds and checking for labor signs. There was one yearling I paused near for further evaluation because she seemed to be working on something, pushing a bit, and sitting up off the ground slightly. I soon found out, however, that all she was working on was a fart!

We went on break at 3pm. The good news is the snow had stopped. The bad news is it hailed on us instead as we walked back up the hill to the house. The hailstones were about the same size and shape as grains of road salt, so it was just unpleasant rather than painful or injury causing. I tried to keep my hands from getting hailed on by tucking them in my pockets and ended up with pockets full of hailstones for my trouble because the hail simply blew in around my wrists.

The walk seems longer when you're walking through hail.

When Grace and I returned to the barn around 9, there was a new leadersheep lamb. I'm sure leadersheep have been described here before, but for those who haven't read through all the previous blog posts, they are a sort of subspecies of Icelandic sheep who are taller, leaner, and more intelligent than a typical Icelandic sheep. I didn't get a good photo opportunity for that one, unfortunately.

Luckily Grace got this picture of a different leadersheep lamb being sassy.

There was also a yearling who'd had two of the tiniest babies ever. She didn't quite grasp the whole "you are a mom now" concept and was really scared and kept trying to escape the situation by jumping out the hay trough.

"What are these things?"

Oh right, these are babies. They do also resemble jellybeans more than the average lamb.

I was tasked with making sure the babies got something to eat, which involved pinning a very squirrely and motivated yearling, and then getting the babies to actually latch, which they didn't quite know how to do, which made a total of four of us who didn't quite know what to do. After much struggling on everyone's part, the babies had full bellies and settled down for a nap.

Soon after, I found myself assisting a somewhat feral sheep who had a correctly positioned lamb but didn't care to push it out. I stepped in when its tongue started turning blue. The problems continued afterwards, because she was totally uninterested in licking it off. She got the second lamb out without assistance, but subsequently decided to eat instead of tending to the babes. I soon found out a possible reason when I went to strip her teats-- she has chronic mastitis and her teats were full of milk clots. I was able to clear one teat, from which we obtained colostrum for the twins. Meanwhile, the triplet mom that caused us some stress yesterday, in the adjacent jug, picked up the mastitis ewe's slack and began cleaning the soggy lambs through the slats. Since it was a cold night and snow was coming in through the vents, we ended up popping both lambs in her jug temporarily for her to finish the job.

A later shot of our MVP of the night snuggling with her lambs.

Our last lambing before we left at 1 or 2 am (not sure... time is a blur, or an illusion, or something like that.... I'm a bit tired) was a yearling expecting twins. Grace had checked the position of the first lamb and found that it had one leg back. Since I have smaller hands, I went in and was able to find the second leg and pull it forward, but the problems did not end there. The lamb was big, and had a big head, and big ol' horn buds. I tried, but I just could not get a lambing loop over its head. I had to resort to pulling the legs, as Grace assisted by pressing the vulva area to help push the lamb's head out. It was tough. I nearly cried because I felt bad for the yearling, and Grace was pretty sure the lamb was dead. When we got him out, however, he was very much alive, and the yearling immediately accepted him and began licking him vigorously. The second lamb was also large, but came out more easily. The yearling had to take some time before her legs started working again, but they did, and mom and babies all seemed to be in good spirits when we left.

I thought the baby might even suckle like this, but she waited until mom got up.

Proud mother and both of her giant babies.