LAMBS!

Wednesday night, Edrea, my fawn katmoget ewe, started showing a little mucus and was looking a little uncomfortable. She was not in active labor yet, but I decided to put her in a jug since she would be a first time mom and I didn't want to take a chance on leaving her out with the "general population" if she were to decide to go into labor over night. I did a late night check and everything was fine, still some mucus, but nothing more. Nothing had changed by Thursday morning, so I kept checking every couple of hours to see if there were any new developments. "Eddie" would look at me as if to say, "what?", and go back to munching on her hay. By last barn check Thursday night Eddie was looking a lot more hollow on her sides, but still not in active labor. Willow, on the other hand,was standing alone in the corner of the barn, away from the other girls, not eating and looking very suspect. I opened the gate and Willow very happily took her place in the lambing jug next to Edrea's.

Oh boy, I thought, what do you girls have planned for me?

I went to bed wondering what the night would bring and found myself wide awake at 12:30 am, thinking that I better go check on the girls. I grabbed the flashlight and headed out to the barn. When I opened the barn door Eddie had JUST delivered this beautiful fawn katmoget EWE lamb! She was still covered with birth fluids, but thankfully everything looked good. I stripped Eddie's teats and dipped the umbilicus. Baby got a good drink of colostrum in pretty short order. The only problem was that, Willow, still in the next jug, wanted that baby in the worst way. She somehow got her head through the bars and was trying to clean off the lamb and was "talking" to her. I was afraid that she might disrupt the bonding process between Eddie and baby, especially since Eddie was a first time mom. I promptly moved Willow to the other side of the barn ...she was NOT happy!

"Who's my mommy anyway ?"

After I was sure that mom and baby were well bonded and baby was getting plenty to drink, I returned Willow to her jug next to the new family. I gathered up my supplies and climbed out of the pen. By now it was 2:30 am and I was exhausted. I turned to look one more time only to see Willow glare at me and then heave herself onto the hay with a heavy harrumph and begin to grunt and push!

NO, Willow! I was going to bed....seriously, do we have to do this now???

I guess we did. Willow is an experienced mom so things went very well. She delivered this little grey ram lamb by 3:30 am.

And by 3:40 she gave birth to this gorgeous black ram lamb. Awesome fleece already.
So finally at 4:30 am, I decided that everyone had been attended to, fed, dried and snuggled with their respective moms. I asked the rest of the ladies in waiting if anyone else would like to start in labor since it was clear that I was not going to get any sleep anyway, but there were no takers.

Lovey, my black krunet ewe, and Trillium, one of my spotties, are looking very close too. This is day 147 since rent-a-ram was introduced to the girls (usual gestation period for Shetlands). Which tells me that apparently my girls are, well, how can I put this and maintain my "G" rating? They are..friendly...VERY friendly, and they didn't waste ANY time getting acquainted with Mr. ram.

Those of you who are regular readers of this blog, I know what you are thinking... last year we started out with a ewe lamb and ended with a procession of ram lambs with a final tally of 6 rams and only 2 ewes. I know, things are looking a bit deja vu.....we still have 4 ewes left to lamb though, it will even out....right?