I'm leaving for Alliston, ON tomorrow for the Ontario Handweavers' & Spinners' conference where I will partake in workshops, vendor shopping, a banquet and meet up with my classmates in the OHS spinning certificate course where we will have our graduation ceremony. In setting everything up for Hugh to take over for 3 days, I noticed Morgan was in labour. I rearranged the girls again and put her and Emma (still waiting) in the lambing pen. I closed off the old pasture and cleaned out the other end of the pen in the shed. I've only got the center part to clean up now from the long winter.
Morgan was not a happy girl. Her lamb was not presenting normally. Only 1 front foot and the head. The other foot was bent. I read up what I had to do and got ready. She was not cooperating. She would barely let me touch her. Eventually the head and foot were fully presenting by then and there was no way to get her other leg forward. After trying to help Morgan to no avail, I gave in and ran for my neighbour Pam, but she wasn't home. I went back to the shed panicking a bit and trying to figure out what I should do. Finally I pinned Morgan to the wall with my knee and pulled and jiggled that lamb out as gently but forcefully as I could on each contraction. She thankfully tumbled out. I thought she'd by dead by now, but no, once the umbilical cord was severed, she started to try breathing. Another beautiful ewe lamb with the same Katmoget pattern as my 2 other lambs out of Twist (Una & Quinn). Funny thing is that Twist is white and white is dominant over all other pattern genes, but he also carries the Katmoget pattern and that is the gene he is throwing to all his lambs, not the white.....yet. I still have Emma left and she is my last hope to get a cute little white lamb. I haven't taken a picture yet, nor named the ewe lamb, but she weighed 3.1 kg.
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What interesting reading! I felt nervous reading your description of assisting Morgan with the delivery. It made me think back to Grampie and his cows. I remember him making late night trips to the barn when he had a cow that had showed signs of going into labour when he was doing the milking. There was extra concern if it was a first-time mother. Sometimes a cow wouldn't show up with the herd to be brought to the barn for milking and a search would ensue. The cow would usually be found in a thicket with a calf. I can imagine how sweet the lambs would look frolicking around.
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