Tonight was probably one of the best nights of my entire life. It was the first time I have ever seen a lamb born. I've seen one goat born, but that has been it. I was helping my boss teach a class at the farm, and when we went over to look at the mama sheep who were all pregnant - well, needless to say, one was giving birth.
Now a little back story on the ewe (a ewe is a girl sheep, if you didn't know). She is one of the oldest on the farm. Her name is Molly, and she happens to be one of my boss' favorite sheep. A day or two ago, she laid down and made no motion to get back up. She was not dead, she was just too weak and too pregnant to stand. We knew she was ready to birth, so when she did she did so laying down - which is fine. The only problem was that she could not stand up after words to nurse her new lambs. That was a big problem, because the lambs need to get the first milk (or colostrum) from their mother as soon as possible because it has a tone of good bacteria fighting nutrients and things in it. Now Molly did try to stand, many times, but she honestly couldn't. Her back left leg was too weak to put weight on; we found this out later.
She gave birth to twin ewes, which my boss was VERY excited about. She actually started crying when they were born - bless her heart. This was exciting because Molly is getting up in years, so now we have some girls that we can keep to keep her blood line going. The thing I loved, is that one of the lambs was marbled. That means it has patches of black and white wool! We have not had one of those lambs at the farm in a long time. And let me just tell you, it is the most adorable little lamb you will ever see. Sadly this is the ONE night I forget my camera... sorry. Hopefully I will be back soon to take lots of pictures.
Back to the milk though. We had to do a bit of improvising, this meant getting a bail of straw and putting it under Molly. That way her stomach was on top of the bale and she could sorta-ish stand. The lambs did get a good drink of milk, which was a blessing. Also Molly was being a bit feisty which may not seem like a good thing but it was. That meant that she still had some strength left in her, so she will most likely make it. :)
Now while Molly was giving birth, of course this class was going on. The class is for 2-5 year olds, and they are watching a sheep give birth. The parents were ecstatic, and the kids did good too. Now if you have never seen a sheep give birth, its not loud like human's its a very quiet thing. So its not like we were tramatizing the children. In the end, all seemed well.
That was only part of the night though. (I was at the farm until about 10... it was a late night to say the least.) Two little Nubian goats had been born earlier that day. One of them was black, and one of them was brown. I got to feed them, twice :) With new goats, it takes some time (meaning a Long time) to get them to drink all their milk. It also involves cuddling them on your lap to get them to drink. Now that part is not so bad. After the little brown goat had drunk as much as he/she (I don't remember what gender they were) could hold in its tiny belly, the goat fell asleep in my arms. I sure didn't want to move after that, so I just sat there for a bit with it sleeping in my arms. Thats one of those precious moments that I will never forget. Not even a day old baby, asleep in your arms.
Later that night, I tried to feed all five french alpine goats. They were all in one pen together, so when you sit down to feed one, they all try to climb on you. That was a bit of a struggle, but in the end it turned out good. The other thing of that, is that french alpines all look around the same and the five we had all looked the same. One of them was bigger than the rest, because he was born a single, but the rest looked a lot alike. This meant I had to keep track of who I had fed and who I had not. I could only feed one at a time, because they have to sit in your lap as you feed them to get them to drink. All's good that ends well though.
One last event stuck out to me, and this one isn't the happiest. Probably because its the hardest to write about. When you live/work on a farm, there are always learning moments. Now this is one of them. I don't write this so that we can 'point fingers' (as my boss frazed it), but so that we can all learn from this. Its not to criticize how awful our farm is either. I'm pretty sure anyone who lives/works on a farm can tell you, mistakes happen - no matter how hard you try to prevent them. That really applies to life as well, but I can see it at the farm as well. Anyways, the story.
At the farm, we separated our sheep into two groups. Some are in the back, and will give birth in June. The other group is in the barn and are all giving birth now. So they were bred at two different times. Somehow, one that we bred for the first group was switched with one from the second group. The problem with this is that the first group (that is birthing now) gets extra feed to help with the lambs growth. That means that the one switched, that actually was pregnant now, did not get the extra feed. We caught the switch about a week ago, but the lambs were born on Sunday night.
They were triplets, little speckled things, but we think they were born about a week too early. Due to a number of complications, we lost the mother. She had a hard bag, and the malnutrition, and possibly some other bacterias there was just no hope. As of now, the three lambs are still alive. At first, it was bad to be honest, but they are doing a lot better. One of the lambs got adopted by another mom who only gave birth to a single, but tonight we found that the mother was rejecting the lamb so we had to go back to being a bottle baby. The lambs are doing MUCH better, but they still have a ways to go. I got to help feed them, and they are just precious. I'm praying they will make it, and so far things are looking good. The only thing is the little girl who is the weakest of the bunch. But we did get her to stand tonight, which is a HUGE improvement.
To sum this all up, tonight was amazing. I would say I can't even put it into words, but I just did. I'm also just glad that everyone survived.... there were times that I wasn't sure. Hopefully the babies will keep coming, and be even more healthy. Hopefully I'll be able to take some pictures asap, cause they are adorable and sadly they will not stay that small forever. So, goodnight to all and take the babies advice and get lots of rest :) - they sure do sleep a lot.
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