A little break...and then 3 more!

This morning I arrived at the sheep shed to let the girls "in waiting" out (sheep that haven't had their lambs yet) and saw 2 little lambs all by their lonesome, that looked very similar to Una and would definitely be Twist babies. The strange thing is that any sheep bred to Twist is only expected to have 1, not twins. Turns out one was Una. She had snuck through the feeder to the other pen and the other one was a little ram lamb belonging to Peaches. He weighed in at 2.85 kg and since moving to a lambing pen with his mom, she seems to be taking good care of him.

Peaches with ram lamb Quinn

While waiting for more lambs to come, I've had to manage a few lamb issues. Ellie's little boy Ferris seems lazy and won't drink much from mom. He cries often and doesn't seem to have a full tummy. I've checked mom and she has lots of milk, but he doesn't seem to know how to stay on. I spent a lot of time getting him latched on without much success. Mom is too busy eating all she can and doesn't seem to pay him much attention, so I made the decision to supplement him by feeding him lamb milk replacer. Now he follows me everywhere calling for me. He is still very small and gets pick on by some of the other moms (mostly the young ones). He's been pretty beaten up by them and I've had to rescue him. I've kept him isolated with his mother in a lambing pen. Its been a good thing that I haven't had any other lambs until now.

Aidan bottle feeding Ferris

I've also kept Thelma and her twin ewes in the lambing pen because Uchenna still looks a bit blind. Her sister Ursula is doing great. Uchenna will easily lose her mother and gets disoriented. I've continued giving her vitamin B1 and can happily report that she hasn't succumbed to the sickness I had last year. I've read that it can take a week for the lambs to get better and it is possible that the blindness is irreversible. I haven't heard back from the vet yet.

All the lambs born earlier in the week and their moms had access to the pasture today. It is an adorable sight to see lambs running around across the whole pasture chasing and racing each other. They kick up their heels and do little flips in the air. Later in the afternoon, I noticed that Meg was in labour. So I moved her immediately to the other lambing pen next to Peaches and Quinn. I went inside for 30 minutes and came out to check on her and there were 2 little lambs already standing up. They are all black with varying white on their heads. Another set of twin ewe lambs. If I was planning on growing my flock this year, I'd be jumping for joy at the number of girls I've had. 3 sets of ewe twins. The lamb with the heart shaped white spot on her head is Nadia weighing 3.25 kg and Natasha has more white on her head weighing 3 kg. Mom seems to be in control and she is a very good mom, so I didn't interfere with them tonight. I'll have a better look at them tomorrow.

I had to rearrange the other girls, so I put Ellie and Ferris with the 2 remaining moms in waiting. They are lambs from last year and they get rough with Ferris, but I watched and Ellie stood up for him and let those young girls know that they couldn't mess with her baby, so hopefully things will be OK for him. He found a nice place to sit and fall asleep before nightfall near the feeder where his mom seems parked.