This week has been crazy busy. Finally, lambing season is done. While we only have a small flock, transitioning from only cattle to cattle and sheep has been quite a learning experience for us.

Shirley, one of the ewes went into labor last Sunday. All the other sheep lambed without any problems. After about an hour I started getting a little concerned as she was obviously straining but nothing was happening. Figured it was time to for GC and I to go check things out.

She was definitely having problems as the lamb’s front feet and a nose were clearly visible but wedged. Now GC can pull calves all day long but had no experience with lambs. Being that he has pretty large muscular forearms his thinking was that I should go in with my smaller hands and check thinks out.

Whoa there Nelly!

I had never done anything like that before and really wanted to watch a vet pull one first so I would know what to do the next time. Since the poor lamb looked like a goner (tongue purple and hanging out) and because he seemed really stuck we decided to go ahead and get a vet out there. Our thinking was that there might be a twin in there that needed to come out and would hopefully be alive.

We were going on about 3 hours when the vet arrived from the time when Shirley first went into labor; I hate hate hate losing an animal.

So the vet got on with pulling the lamb, GC had hold of Shirley and I was leaning on the stall fence watching the vet. He stood up with the lamb and was showing us that the “elbow” part of the legs had gotten stuck when lo and behold the lamb wiggled.  It was alive and trying to breathe! Even our vet was surprised as it seemed deader than a doorknob. It was a huge ram lamb. That’s a boy for you non-sheep folks. There was another lamb but it was stillborn. Still we were so happy that one survived.

We ended up with 4 healthy lambs, 2 ewe lambs (girls for you non-sheep folks) and 2 ram lambs. Our small flock is slowly growing, now there are 9 ewes and 3 rams. Whew, I am glad it’s over!