Friday, April 9, 2010

Some things I didn't mention...

I had intended to mention a few more things in that last post, but I was so tired from staying up late with lambs that its actually quite a wonder I got anything up at all.

Lambing this year has been for the most part wonderful. With the exception of Crimson having twins and rejecting one (she went to the neighbor, her and her kids are enjoying having a lamb as a pet :), and one of Bab's ewe lambs dying for no reason I could fathom, lambing has been easy. Then, one of the new ewes lambed in the big pen. I had felt her udders the day before and figured she was an easy two weeks away from lambing, so left her out. Jari called me when I was in town that day and told me the ewe had lambed but she didn't think the ewe knew what happened because she had walked away. This Tunis ewe and one other that came to me from my friend Sam in Moab last year (originally from a Tunis raiser in Oregon) are first time mothers, so it was not unexpected that she would be confused. So I came home. I noticed the lamb was bleating and strong, the ewe had come back to her, but the lamb wouldn't pick her head up. When Jari went to pick the lamb up so we could get her and her mother into the nursery, she kind of screamed, and backed away, I thought she was going to throw up, and said its neck was broken. I went in to the pen and found the lamb with a horribly twisted neck, not broken but the result was the same. Her neck was so twisted that her head was on sideways. My son put her down for us.
Then, last night, the other new Tunis ewe lambed in the big pen (attentive? me? That's two!). While we were watching Grace and making her nervous, Kevin went to feed and come back to tell me there was a new lamb in the pen and it didn't seem 'right' to him. He had his head held low, like you see some sheep do during fly season, and he kept backing up. When I picked him up to get them to the nursery, his heart was hammering! He was dry and warm, despite the 35 degree weather, so I knew he'd nursed, but watching him in the nursery (after a hefty shot of B Complex) I realized Kevin had been right. This lamb wasn't 'right'. After his hair raising adventures in the big pen (all the ewes and lambs were running around bleating for mom, bleating for kids, it was total confusion) he got a bit shocky I think, and just lay down to sleep. I wasn't sure what I would find this morning when I went out, but I had resigned myself to another dead lamb.
When I did go out, there were still three healthy newborns and they were all nursing and seem to be thriving. Despite his posture, the 'not right' lamb seems to be doing fine nursing and hopefully will continue to do well.
So is it just me or could there be a pattern here? Seems odd that I have two 'not right' lambs out of two ewes from the same farm... I have a msg in to the breeder to talk about it, so we'll see.

Michelle asked how many pure bred Tunis we have this year, the total is four.

LAMBING SEASON IS OFFICIALLY CONCLUDED :)

5 comments:

Michelle said...

It's always something, isn't it? We will probably never know why two of Brava's triplets mummified (that's what the lab said, although they didn't look mummified to Rick); last year I had a really good-looking lamb with a mysterious and undiagnosed condition weaken and die.

Sharon said...

Talk to Mim. You will have an interesting conversation.

Jody said...

That sounds horrifying....not something you would ever forget :((
That poor baby.

Laura said...

Nice lambs! Hard to tell why a lamb comes out "wrong" - but it is suspicious that they are of the same bloodline.

Um, can I reserve Babs' fleece???

June said...

Well, all I can say is Thank God! I could never do what you do for a living! And I have to agree with the others here, it seems something is amuck with the new line.

Good luck with all of this. . .