Thursday, May 13, 2010

Some Surprises!

Yesterday I got a call from our Sheepy friend. She had another project for Vet2Be. Her 11 year old ewe had lambed with two lambs in the morning. She had no idea that her ewe was even bred. She didn't 'take' last year and had no lambs last spring. She left her ewe in with the ram because she thought the ewe was done and was just going to let her retire.

Surprise! Sheepy's father called her in the morning and said she had a lamb in the pasture. Sheepy said that wasn't possible, they were done lambing last month!

Well, there really was a lamb in the pasture! In fact there were two. But the old ewe is too tired to count past 'one' and didn't know that she had a second lamb. Vet2Be and Uncle Sam, the dog, are now raising another new little lamb. She is much more active than the lamb that Sheepy raised from the dead in early January. The weather is a bit warmer now, too, so she can spend the day outside in the grass with Uncle Sam and Mandy. We'll bring her into the house in the evening and keep her in the box for a few days.


Here's little Sparky with Uncle Sam, the dog.


Woops!! The tile floor is great for cleaning up spills, but not so great for new-born lambs who are trying to walk!

The other surprise we had last night was a new kid! I really wasn't sure if Kathy was pregnant. She was still very slender. Her vulva area was a little swollen and a small udder was forming, but she wasn't as big as Pearl (who still hasn't kidded.)

Last night when we went out to milk there was a cleaned off kid in the stall. And it belonged to Kathy! The little doeling was all cleaned off and almost dry. She had already had her first colostrum, we could tell because one side of her mouth was sticky. She was standing and active and following her mom around.

We locked Kathy and her kid in the stall, along with Pearl, just in case Pearl decided to kid during the night.

Two very nice surprises yesterday! A new lamb to raise and a new kid born to Kathy! 

And to make it an even sweeter day, Vet2Be got to spend two hours at a local veterinarian's office watching some surgeries. 

What a fun day!

1 comment:

Sarah said...

Congratulations! The pictures are fantastic. And your dog looks like he knows what he is doing.