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Hannibal with her human Dad on their birthday. |
We have five baby lambs at our house!
Four of them were born yesterday. It was my human dad’s birthday too.
Our first lamb was born on Monday morning.
Mom was tapping on the keyboard when Dad came in and told her, “You’d better come look at one of your sheep—there’s a white string hanging from its behind.”
It was cold, so mom grabbed her coat and ran to the sheep fold just in time to see Wren drop her lamb. Wren was standing up. It’s her first lamb so she didn’t know what she was supposed to do.
Mom was speechless.
Wren was not supposed to be bred! I heard the rams snickering. One of them bred Wren through the fence.
So, Mom and Dad made Wren a lambing jug (that’s where new moms and their babies go to get to know each other really well), then Mom picked up the lamb and tried to get Wren to follow. The problem is that ewes don’t look for flying lambs. So, whoever is carrying the lamb has to bend over and carry it with its feet just skimming the ground.
It’s a funny sight!
Mom named the baby Hannibal. He’ll have to be a wether because his dad is unknown (well, the rams know but they won’t tell). That’s okay because wether sheep grow the nicest wool.
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Wren liked her little lamb but didn’t know she had to stand still so it could eat. She kept turning and turning so she could admire it.
Mom milked two ounces of colostrum (that’s antibody-rich first milk) into a bottle and fed it to Hannibal because babies should ingest colostrum right away. Then he felt really zippy. As Wren turned, he followed, and pretty soon they connected just right.
Yesterday morning Mom got a ‘hunch’ she should roll out of bed and check the sheep.
She did and surprise! Shebaa was giving birth to her second lamb.
It was a surprise because Sheeba was only with Oran the ram for 35 minutes before Dad decided we didn’t want to have a lot of lambs this year.
Mom struck a bargain and left Baatiste with him and took Shebaa out of Oran’s breeding pen. I guess it wasn’t fast enough.
Mom snipped and dipped (navels), stripped (Shebaa’s teats), and headed to the house to wake Dad so he could help her watch them sip (nurse).
As she passed Aunt Lori’s ewe, Ursula, she noticed Ursula was ready to lamb too.
NEXT Monday: Find out from Martok what happens to Ursula …
Right now, you can catch up on on his previous adventures.
