Friday, April 28, 2017

Silence of the Lambs

I expected a ruckus but I guess lambs are pretty quiet in order to hide from predators. On Thursday morning I went out later than usual for chores and found Honey and her twin girls! Oh happy day!


After admiring Honey's babies I picked one up, put it in front of her face and led her into the "jug" (a little temporary stall where they live for about 24 hours to bond) Honey followed her right in with her other lamb following right behind. Success! My sheep are not interested in having any relationship with me so I was worried about how to get Honey in her jug but this worked perfectly.

I had a hard time getting anything done yesterday what with all the oooooing and ahhhhing over the babies. I snuggled each of them for a minute or two but otherwise left them all alone--watching from a distance. So precious!


Last night Brad woke me up after spotting a head emerging from No Name (my brother was so upset by this and promptly named her Suzy) on the video camera he had set up in the barn. We went out to see and found the first one had been born--a little boy with a black head, brown edging to his ears, and white markings under his eyes.


After about 30 minutes of meticulously cleaning this new baby boy lamb, Suzy gave birth to a little white girl! This little girl was smaller than her brother and at first seemed very strong. She stood faster and went searching for Suzy's udder right away but never seemed to get anything from it. This morning she seems cold, tiny, and uncertain. Every time she tries to nurse, she can't find the teat. She does the head butt to the udder thing but then doesn't get the teat in her mouth. After talking to our sheep friend we went off to the farm store and bought milk replacer, nutria-drench (vitamins and molasses) and nipples that go on a water bottle. I gave baby girl a few cc's of the drench and then bottle fed her some milk replacer and put her back in with her mom. We'll see how it goes. Maybe she just needs a little bit of food to build up enough strength to nurse from her mom. That's the hope anyway!

Update--little white girl is doing great!


Thursday, April 6, 2017

Zaaaaaaap!

I can't tell if the fence is on...lean over to see if the light is flashing...
and rest my hand DIRECTLY on the wire going into the charger. 


"F*$!#!!!!"


Yes, it's on.


Ow!