Yesterday's Lambs

These aren’t really yesterday’s lambs, but they were when I uploaded the photos to write this post. So I’ll go with it. Saturday was a busy day in the barn with four sets of twins and a single.

This was one of the first things I saw in the barn. Fortunately that lamb is OK. I had the feeder down low so that the ewe could eat over the top and not get so much hay on her neck. Now I’ve moved the feeder higher.

The first lambs were Honey’s twin ewes.

The next were Trista’s twins.

I had help on this morning. Kimber and Terri from Farm Club came to help in the barn and check out the lambs. They left after we finished our work. but when a ewe showed signs of imminent lambing I texted Terri who lives close by and Sarah, a UCD veterinary student who wanted to get some sheep experience. We were watching Estelle and waiting…and waiting. I looked over the fence and saw Jillian at about the same stage.

It was neck and neck (or maybe I should say nose and nose) for awhile, but eventually Estelle pulled ahead and had her lamb, a single.

Not too much later Jillian delivered twins, the first this year from Peyton, a Bluefaced Leicester. Jacob crossbred lambs are black and often larger than purebred Jacob lambs.

My friends helped finish up chores and make sure everyone had water. We put one more ewe in because I thought that she was getting ready to lamb.

I went to the house about 7 for pizza that Dan made. (After watching some show about the Best Pizza he decided to launch his cooking career with homemade pizza. We had made it together the previous week and this was the second time he’d made it by himself. Score!)

I went back to the barn at about 8 to see how things were going and Bea had already lambed.

This is Estelle and her lamb.