We began this lambing season with a single lamb...then a set of quadruplets...followed by a set of triplets...and another single lamb. Nine lambs within 48 hours!!! Of course this all happened on a weekend when my husband was home alone. He dealt with it all fine and kept me and our son up to date with texts and pictures -- how wonderful cell phones are!
Please pardon these first pictures. They are truly the "first" pictures sent by cell phone to me in Gatlinburg.
These are the quadruplets. The mother of these lambs had been literally down on us for two weeks before giving birth. We were expecting a set of twins -- large twins. The ewe was so large she couldn't get up and walk any more. My husband would go out twice a day and help her stand up and she would walk a few steps toward the barn. She ended up being unable to stand by herself for a total of eight days before the lambs were born. The vet thought she was suffering with toxemia and wanted to wait as long as possible before doing a C-Section so the lambs would have the best chance of survival. Imagine Charlie's surprise when he came home in the afternoon to check on her and she had delivered four lambs and already had three of them cleaned up! No vet help needed! One of these lambs did not make it. The mother ended up being too sick to care for the three left so a friend's daughter took two of the quadruplets and one of the triplets born the next day to bottle feed and raise. Charlie is still bottle feeding the one quadruplet left (Lucy). The mother has survived and is up walking on her own and taking care of Lucy except for a couple of bottles a day.
The triples came next. As I mentioned above, Charlie let one of them go to be bottle fed and raised by a friend. The mother has taken care of the other two just fine.
This cutie was our next delivery. Most of our herd are Dorset which are always solid white. We had a white Gulf Coast ram given to us a couple of summers ago. His son who was 1/2 Gulf Coast and 1/2 Dorset was the father of this lamb. Somewhere in their background is definitely some black spots...such a different look for our herd. You'll see other pictures of her below as she has grown.
We had another set of triplets a couple of weeks later. The mother of these triplets has totally raised all three of her triplets on her own.
These last two pictures tickled me as I was taking them. These are two of the lambs left from the first set of triplets. The first lamb was lying down and looked to be falling asleep so I kept my camera on her hoping to catching her asleep in just a few seconds. The second lamb came up and I thought maybe she would lie down with her sister and I would get a cute shot of both of them, but noooooo...she wanted her sister to get up and play. She continued to prod her until the other lamb got up and went off with her. Watching lambs play, run, jump, twist, chase, and play "king of the hill" is definitely my favorite part of raising sheep. Such a joy!
Judy :)
