Failure to Thrive- the Weak Lamb

It’s 4am. Dusty has been at work for 3 days. We are full send on the lambing front. Every year I go into lambing wondering/dreading what I will get to learn this year. Maybe one day I will hit a point where I feel like an expert or prepared to handle anything. That day has not yet come.... not even close. 

It’s was straight into the fire this year. No warm up. Just head first into a difficult pull. Everyone lived through the initial delivery... I’m not sure how even now that I have had 48 hours to process it and detailed notes in my health records. 

(I am going to digress for a moment.... I love records. It’s taken tweaking over the years and I’ll probably always be modifying and adjusting them but our health records have been one of my most valuable tools)

Anyways.....

Everyone lived through the initial delivery. 48 hours later though we are still dealing with consequences from that. Weak lambs are incredibly frustrating to me. We don’t get many but it’s usually a result from trauma at birth but we have had a lamb that was given perfect conditions and yet still failed to thrive. 

This little ewe lamb tonight was given 24 hours of colostrum. It took her 8+ hours to just stand. She had no sucking reflex. Somehow she survived the first 24 hrs and was walking and running and interested in the ewe. We started milking the ewe and feeding the lamb. We even got her to suck from the ewe. Then we took a sharp 180 and are headed in the opposite direction. The little ewe lamb is now in the house and being tube fed every 2 hours. The odds are she won’t make first light. She is having seizures and is star gazing. Hasn’t urinated but is still passing fecal matter. Temps are all normal. 

I have learnt so many things to try to assist a weak lamb to be successful and yet the one thing they need the most and the one thing I cannot help them with is A WILL TO LIVE. To want to thrive. 

Every time we have a loss on the farm it feels like a personal failure of my own and I think that is the most frustrating thing for me when it comes to the case of weak lambs and failure to thrive. 

2021

We started out right on schedule. 2020 was the first year we used a crayon on our rams and Hannah {the lovely Suffolk ewe below}was marked with her due date set for January 4th . January 4th in the early morning we had our first 2021 lamb. He’s a beauty! He is a vigorous curious lamb!

The longest Season

👆🏻👆🏻THIS has literally been my ENTIRE life  since December 26 2019.

I think my cameras are burnt into my memories. 

Part my fault and part the universe- this year has been THE longest lambing season of our sheep rearing careers! 

We are down to the last 2 ewes

 Ginny👈🏼 & 👉🏼Gwennie

{ I know that poor Gwennie is atrociously thin 😢😢 we have been very actively trying to build her health back up but we can’t keep up- this will most likely be her last set of lambs on our farm }

Anyways- I digressed ... 👆🏻👆🏻 Is literally what looks at me multiple times a day like, “oh hey! (Insert dopey smile and hair flip) how’s it goin??”

Next year we are working on getting everything delivered in 2 weeks! That’s my goal! 

I’m really not complaining 

{ok, I am}

But not really 

Because look at how sweet that little face is 👇🏻

❤️❤️❤️❤️

Perfection Pending

I seem to find this place to gather my thoughts or purge the difficulties this lifestyle carries. We have had a pretty good run this year. 30 ewes lambed and we lost one at a couple days old. We did all our commercial ewes and we had some difficult pulls but we seemed to come out the other side successful. 

Tonight, however, I am going to bed tired and a little defeated. I have absolutely unrealistic expectations of myself. When it comes to the husbandry part of this gig I absolutely expect zero errors from myself. A lesson learnt cost me a healthy (maybe) black babydoll ewe lamb. She was the second out of twins. Her mother is a good ewe. My gut told me all night that something was off but I try to be as hands off as I can and I talked myself out of intervening a few times. Not sure if it would of made a difference and that is always the kicker! 

I will stew on this loss for a while. I just can’t shake my expectation of perfection and the wave of failure that accompanies any loss. 

Lambing 2019

I would say overall it was a successful year here on the homestead. 

We ending lambing on a hard note this morning. 1 large dead ewe lamb. Died during birth. 

Large lamb

First time ewe

Both legs back

Wedged in canal

Plus we didn’t catch it right away

Death happens but for me it’s not easy but some deaths are easier to process than others. This kind of death sits on my shoulders. Ultimately, it’s my responsibility to get their lambs here safely and alive and when one dies in a pull that outcome squarely is mine.

I shoot for an unrealistic 100% success rate and some years I have been blessed to get that. This year was close. All but the last survived and with only a few ewes needing a little extra help. 

We are heavy on our ram lambs this year which makes this loss even more frustrating... a ewe lamb.

But as hard as this is, it’s another lesson learned.

Selling your Soul

Self- evaluation or farm evaluation can be a heart wrenching process (at least it is for me).

Do we have enough land to support this? 

Do we have access to enough feed?

Do we have the time to keep expanding?

Do we have the time to properly care for any animals?

Do we have enough money to support a hobby farm and our other needs?

Is this what we (all) want to be focused on?

Sometimes the answers all point full steam ahead. For our family, there have been some yellow lights, which has meant a closer inspection or a pause to reflect. 

As I write this I am driving 5 adult babydolls to their new home. The original 3 (Teddy, Bella, and Buttons) have all now found new homes. I feel so much sadness in my soul. Sad to say goodbye to the sheep that have been our base. I have had lots of moments of hesitation during the process of selling these 5. 

Do I honor the animal and let them live out their days on our farm?

Do I need to sell them?

Am I doing the right thing?

We sell lambs every year. We have sold older animals. This trip and process has been plagued with this question of right vs wrong. 5 older sheep is a significant change to our farm fabric. These particular sheep are also some of the animals we are most attached to.

I believe at some point every farm/farmer has to ask themselves these same questions. We know it's not a matter of right vs wrong but a question of aligning production & operations with your soul & passion. 

Today I/we are selling pieces of our soul to balance production. Another not so easy lesson.

2018 Breeding Schedule

2019 should be an exciting year for us. Most of 2018 we have contemplated changing our focus but after a tough year we decided to carry on through to 2019. We have a couple exciting changes. 2 new rams and some of our own rams joining the ranks. We also will have a new buck arriving just in time for our goats.


   

2017 Sales

Fern

This sweet girl was born last year and is one of the quietest most gentle ewes. 

Her mother is noisy and bossy but she got our ram, Fabio's, super chill personality.

We have to move our sheep around a lot because of grazing and predators etc and she happily follows anywhere in the yard.

Dabbs

I have been working on getting some of our animals updated. This is Dabbs- It is our second daughter's goat.

Updates

Our January lambs are doing great! All are sold as 4-H animals.

My girls are selling their Nigerian Dwarf kids from October and I updated the sales page. Check them out! They are hilarious and adorable (and they eat lots of weeds....)

Lambing 2018

We are lambing out some of our ewes early this year! My girls started 4-H last year and our big sale is the beginning of June SO that means January lambs!! We really lucked out and starting lambing after a couple really chilly cold snaps!! Stay tuned for some adorable pictures.....

Comings and Goings

Winter came and went. There wasn't anything too out of the norm- which is the way we like it! The spring however was a much different story.

We started by adding a couple of 4-H lambs. My kids bought some Suffolk crosses from a local feedlot and we began fattening. A new experience when we have previously sold our animals as breeding stock or pets...

We also added a pig into the mix....

The pig was hopefully going to provide us with bacon babies but she ended up with a hernia... So scratch that and now she is destined for our freezer.

Which the kids aren't too sad about.... Pigs are not their favorite.

And then we started lambing and kidding....

We were off to a decent start and then our oldest ewe Stella was dry with twins. 

After a Hail Mary and lots of prayers she got her milk in 2 days later.

Then it was a ram year.... Enough said.

And finally the ewe that always has a little trouble (too big of lambs) went into labor. And more labor and more labor. And finally her water broke and the lamb was stuck. A single that was way too big.

The vet got it out and it was dead and a ewe lamb.

That's the swelling we are still dealing with.... Breeding her May not be an option.

And then shearing we lost Stella. Broken femur.

That was a tough loss. 2 lambs left to bottle feed. Lead sheep. Always calm never lost her head babysitter. She was shown at the canadian classic and did well. I put her in with my first time lambert and she always made sure the lambs were cleaned off.

And then.... Abscess heaven. 4 ewes with face and midline abscesses and then pinkeye in 1 ewe who we got quarantined in what looks like the nick of time because no one else seems to have gotten it. And a large hematoma on a ewe.

Lots of lessons learned. Experience gained. Ready to move on to a less exciting summer!

Coyotes

It's 12:33am. A few years ago I would of been up taking care of my crying babies and even longer than a few years ago I would of been up dancing the night away. Tonight I am up letting dogs out of pens and putting sheep up in the barns and making sure cats and ducks and chickens are all where they should be safe. It's been a noisy fall around here. Coyote free-way Coulee is what this place should be called. 

Hopefully everything stays safe and sound!

Life and Death

Our girls, especially our oldest girls, spend quite a but of time outside doing chores and caring for our animals. One of our girls loves the goats and she has an elderly goat that she has cared for the last year. Last night her goat couldn't get up so we moved her to the barn out of the wind. This evening she had a stroke and our oldest said it was time to euthanize Nancy. 

Watching her care for her and say goodbye is tough to watch and it's amazing to see the maturity she has gained over the last couple years. I don't know how else this type of growth could be replicated (not the right word...). 

I am grateful for the lessons we learn and the character we gain. I am grateful for the good and the bad. Birth, life and death seem to be the constants in our changing world.

Night time

Everywhere around us is done harvest or close to wrapping up. It also is one if the most active times for coyotes. 

After losing our prize lamb last year, we have been diligent in our efforts of predator control. 

Our two maremmas are still young at only a year old but have earned their places this fall.

Tonight (from what we saw) they fended off 4 coyotes in the sheep pen long enough that I could get out there. Between the goats and the dogs and my ewes willingness to follow their call, we got everything moved into the barn.

Except the rams (who are in with a nasty horse and 2 donkeys).... Hopefully they make tonight. 

I sometimes wonder if I picked the wrong thing to raise here. I could of got a couple heifers or larger sheep (I am not sure if it would of made a difference). 

Hopefully now that everything is locked up I can fall asleep to the howl of the coyotes and the barking of my big white dogs.

Records.

Through most of lambing season I keep a page open for each of my ewes and lambs on my phone. I jot down anything I see. Most years it goes directly into their own little health book but this year I am just finally getting done today! 

This is the stack of health record for the sheep. I found using seperate duotangs were easier for me than a binder. 

Buttons is one of my unregistered ewes so at the front of hers and our other non-registered ewes I have a cover page with her information on it. The other record books have their registration papers in the front.

Then I just slip one of my health record pages in and transfer the info from my phone. 

It's come in handy so many times (every year we lamb). I try to put things like when their bags start to fill or when we put a teaser in etc. Things I would forget if it wasn't written.

Lambing Lessons

I am always learning things with our animals. I have been so fortunate not to have complications while lambing. It is one of the reasons I picked a heritage breed. I knew the time would come when I would have to do intervene during birth.

Last night was that time. I was home alone and my gut told me all day that we would have problems. Labor for poor Lily was taking a very long time. As 8pm approached she was in hard labor and nothing was happening. Then an empty sack came. I phoned my vet- not home. I phoned my neighbour who owns a feedlot- not home. I phoned my other neighbour (who has a gift with animals and healing)- not home. 

So I bucked up, said a prayer, and got in there. With the next set of contractions I saw another sack. It was a head- no feet.  So I broke the sack and pushed in the head as far as I dared and fished for feet. The lamb was so so so so big so I had to just use my fingers. I got one leg forward but couldn't get the other. On the next set of contractions I got part of the shoulders through and then the next we managed to get him out. 

He is hands down the biggest babydoll lamb we have had. He tipped the scales at 10lbs. 

She seemed off after she had him but we waited out there until 11pm and still contracting but nothing. We checked the camerA at 12am and sure enough she was pushing again. 4 hours after giving birth the a mammoth lamb she had a tiny little ewe lamb.

They are all doing great. And the ram lamb she had is absolutely stunning. He is creamy white with black ears, nose, and legs. He may even end up speckled because of his mother. 

Hills

This morning things are lookin a little better than they were last night. Sick ewe,starving lamb, and didn't bond. This morning was action time. I try to stay hands off as much as I can but by 5am this morning the lamb was in rough shape. I have lamb replacer but I decided to milk the ewe and syringe feed the lamb. Once he got the hang of it we were laughing! He's perked up again this morning and so hopefully we can keep this going!

Reality Check

We obviously sell lambs to people and every year I get phone calls from people wanting their own starter flock. Some people are really for the reality. They know what it entails but others.... Want cute baby lambs or to turn a profit.

Most of my ewes have been easy. Most of my first timers need some help with feeding for the first couple of times but there has been something every year we have done this. Death or struggle that takes diligence and sacrifice on behalf of the shepherd. Maybe some find a romantasized notion in saving a baby or being involved and hands on... It's not the case though. Most of the time the struggle and sacrifice come with no sleep and worry that you've done what you could. Tonight has been no exception. And there will be more nights and more worry with others and with this ewe. We are set up for lambs and ewes and all that this entails but on nights like this I imagine what my life would look like with a couple wethers....