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Lambing
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.
Sunday when I saw the ewe having a hard time delivering her lamb I thought of lambing last year.
Something was wrong. A ewe had broken her water, but instead of laying down to lamb in the paddock, she followed the flock as it moved away from me. If we were in the barn I could have easily caught her and delivered the lamb if it was ready. Catching a sheep in an open field is nearly impossible.
I went back to the paddock that afternoon hoping that she’d lambed; but the ruptured amniotic sac still protruded from her vagina. I was almost certain the lamb was dead inside her. If I didn’t get it out, she would die too. I moved slowly into the flock: one by one the sheep parted, staying just out of my grasp. If I couldn’t catch her I wanted to spray mark her if I found a dead ewe in the paddock. Closer and closer I came, not looking directly at her or any other sheep, pretending I wasn’t there so they would pretend the same; I got close enough to lunge and spray a red squiggle on her rump as she ran off.
Early next morning the alluring fragrance of honeysuckles touched me sweetly as I drove past the vines on the way to the paddock. I cautiously approached the ewes who were still bedded down together. There she was, red rump, off to the left, down on her side facing away from me. Was she dead? She didn’t move as I came up close. She lifted her head and my hand struck like a rattlesnake. I took hold of her hock as she started to get up; she pulled me to my knees, then onto my belly. “Drag me through shit honey, but I’m not letting go of you.” I managed to get my other hand under her neck to control her and got to one knee, dirty but proud of myself—an open field catch.
I put my fingers slowly in her vagina and felt a lamb’s two front feet. Surprisingly the ewe’s body temperature was normal, no fever—a good sign. I smelled my fingers, nothing—another good sign. There was no odor of that horrible soup, a decomposing lamb inside a feverish ewe. I went back in her, aligned the head, took hold of the small hooves and pulled the lamb out swinging it around so the ewe could see it on the grass before her. It was still, I shook it, it was dead.
I released the ewe and stepped back. She started to lick the lamb, then she pawed it trying to make it get up. She was a good mother. What you feel is what I felt, but there is more than sadness here.
Its head dangling at my side, I carried the lamb off the field by its hind hooves. On top of a small rise where I could see the fields below me, I began to spin; I swung the lamb round and round. I let go and over the honeysuckles it flew, over the elm grove, over the men haying the fields below, over the village steeple, through the clouds and into the welcoming sky.
baa, the Catskill Merino Newsletter Vol. 2 No. 50 May 28-June 3, 2007
The first sheep chore of the day is to check for new lambs in the barnyard. It is not unusual to have 10 or more lambs born in a day during the first 20 days of lambing. There were no lambs born this morning, nor were there any born yesterday morning, but I did have two sets of twins yesterday afternoon. I look in upon the lambing ewes at least three times a day.
To check for newborns I walk quietly into the flock to not unduly disturb the 100’s of week-old lambs and their mothers. I look for quivering, wet lambs and listen for that gurgling call of a just-lambed ewe. Finding a ewe with a newborn, I look at the vigor of the lamb: is it standing, is it going to the teat, is it calm, etc. I also note what the ewe is doing: is she attentive to the lamb, is she licking it dry, is she gently nudging it toward her teat, etc.
Sometimes I find a lamb born hours ago with a full belly asleep at the ewe’s side. This is nice to see. Most births go well and usually I find vigorous lambs with attentive mothers. But before I leave the lambing flock, I dip the lamb’s navel in 7% iodine to ward off bacteriological infections like tetanus and I ear tag the lamb noting the ear tag number of the ewe.
Twins can be more complicated for the ewe as lambs begin walking minutes after their births and sometimes they stagger off in opposite directions. But a good ewe will go from one lamb to another, gurgling away, and bring them both to her teats. The world usually works if you don’t get in its way.
Two weeks ago Dominique and I pulled the rye-straw mulch off the garlic. The shoots were pale, spindly and 2 inches tall, now look at these “little soldiers.” Garlic will grow 4 feet in height and flower in what is called a scape just before harvest in early July.
In the photo, behind the garlic to the left of the nearest silo is a lean-to shed that we call the shepherd’s room; it is also where we dye the yarn. Further left of that you can see the boys hanging out in a barren area (sheep will eat grass down to dirt) around a round bale of hay. This year the grass is slow coming on; it has been cool and dry. But yesterday, after a dry spell of two weeks, it did rain; in a day or two, when the soil temperatures rise, the grass will begin to grow faster than the sheep can eat it and at pasture they’ll be.
On the horizon, you see silos which are next to the barn where the girls are lambing; they are due to finish up Sunday. On Monday or Tuesday, with eager Poem, we’ll slowly drive the ewes and their baby lambs down the hill to the green pasture at the left of the garlic field where they will graze through the summer months. We got through another winter.
Summertime
And the livin' is easy,
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high.
Oh yo' daddy's rich
An' yo' ma is good lookin'
So hush, little baby,
Don't you cry.
George & Ira Gershwin
Porgy and Bess
Life Cycle of Internal Parasites
Symptoms:
• Weakness
• Loss of appetite
• Diarrhea
• Weight loss
• Change in wool condition
On Sunday we dewormed the flock; 400 sheep got a Sub-Q injection of Ivermectin and the 100 plus rams got their annual CD/T vaccination (against overeaters disease & tetanus) in addition to the anthelmintic. Then we put Electronet fence out around the 2 acre paddocks where the two groups of sheep were to be moved. By the end of the day, Dominique and I were where fatigue feels heroic.
Here I am on Monday with a lamb, born earlier in the day, lost in the sheep move that afternoon. The lamb's belly was full of milk, evidence of a good mother, but where was “Maaa,” the lamb cried and cried.
