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....

Over Confidence

We've been doing checks at night on the cameras. We seperated out the ewes we expected to have eminent lambs and at night that's the camera we have blown up on the TV. Well, that only works if you are all-knowing... One of the ewes on the other side lambed. We walked out this morning to do morning checks and there was a fresh lamb just laying in the feeder. Someone had cleaned off his face and I am pretty confident it wasn't his mother. So an hour before the bus is coming, Ellie and I scrambled to put together a small pen for this very uncertain duo. The ram lamb is an excellent size (about 6-7 lbs) and is very determined to eat. The ewe is a little uncertain of what is going on but is one of our easiest to handle. We managed to keep her still while her little guy fed and I imagine we'll be handling the two of them a lot over the next couple days.

Updates and checks

I am much better at updating our Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/cattailcoulee/posts/1675789502670101

But I will try to get better at posting daily photos here too!

These were taken today.

We noticed a couple days ago that ram#2 had a leaky eye. Yesterday I started treating it. Sure enough this morning while I was out doing the eye drop I noticed debri. I tweezed it out and flushed it and it's already noticeably better. 

One of our other ewes is painfully close to delivery. I am going to try to get some good pictures if her to show someof the signs of delivery.