The First Lamb

Ewes gestate for 149 days.  Lambing is to start this coming Monday, based on when the rams were put with the ewes.  At noon I went to the lambing barn to get the pens in place before the lambs come.  But I was beaten there by a lamb who arrived 3 days early.

The lamb was born in the yard next to a big round bale; the lamb was large with a good covering of body fat, which meant that it had been carried well.  I could see horn buttons that only a ram would have. His mother was attentive and took on a protective air when she saw me looking down at him.  I could read her eartag number, 258, as she licked his head. The lamb was calm and healthy; I said what I always say, “You got a good looking man, mama…”

I went into the barn to get a bottle of iodine to dip his navel, a yellow plastic eartag, numbered 1999, and an eartag punch.  The lamb was still  quite wet (meaning just born) when I picked him up by grabbing his front legs just below the hooves to expose his belly and navel which I dipped in a 7% iodine solution, now hard to find because it is an ingredient used for making what was called “bathtub crank” in the 60’s, or methamphetamine. 

The lamb winced a little as I pierced his right ear with the eartag.  When I put him down and stepped away, his mother came back to him.  She was a good mother.  I took out my Blackberry and addressed myself an email: “ram  1999,  258.”  At home, on my desktop, into my lambing spreadsheet, I will paste the sex and eartag numbers.  The ewe’s number will tell me which breeding group she was in and consequently who the lamb’s sire was.  

Lambing has begun, more lambs to come in April, the earth spins on.