One Plucky Lamb

The "lame lamb" described in the previous post has made a remarkable turnaround from yesterday afternoon. It seems spending several hours in a basket next to a fire, combined with a stomach full of warm milk, has done wonders for his health. By this morning, he was bleating like any other lamb --- and climbing out of the laundry basket. He reared up, put his front feet on the top of the basket, and then toppled the thing over.

I gave him about 3oz of goat milk first thing this morning, with a bit more cod liver oil, and then moved him outside to a portable dog cage within the sheep area. (These dog cages are incredibly handy as "holding pens" for confining various small livestock, including birds on butchering day.)

A few minutes ago, I went back out to check on him. I'm not sure he likes being demoted back to "sheep", but we're glad to have him out of the house. He sucked down another 3oz of milk, and definitely has the whole bottle thing figured out. Looks like our 11 year old will be able to take it from here.

I'm still not sure what this lamb's long term prospects will be. Note how bad his right front leg looks:

He's getting around surprisingly well, despite that bum leg. And I'm hoping that vitamin and mineral supplements will help improve it. But at least we know we're doing everything in our means to get him off to the best possible start.

Lambing Hits a Speed Bump

We'd been having such a smooth lambing season. Going into Saturday, we had five lambs from three ewes, plus a tiny stillborn triplet. We'll call it five. Saturday evening, we got twins (one male, one female) from one of our seasoned ewes, Licorice.

Then, Sunday night, one of other other ewes delivered twin males. Both are doing great. But note that one of them has a white tuft on the top of his head; it indicates he is descended from one of our truly terrible rams ("Buddy"). By far the meanest, most dangerous animal we've owned. Though Buddy was culled and butchered many years ago, his "mark" still manifests itself from time to time. To be safe, we make sure we butcher any males which are clearly descended from him. So...this little guy may be cute now, but we know his ultimate destination will be the freezer.

This morning was when we hit a speed bump. A yearling ewe, Cleobelle (so named because she's of the "Belle" line and because her eyes look painted like Cleopatra's) delivered a cute little male lamb --- but then promptly ignored him. Didn't even bother licking him off all the way.

As you can see, the rooster appears more interested in him than his own mother does.

He did manage to get up --- sort of. His front legs aren't working well, and the trouble appears to be with the tendons. His back legs are fine, but up front his knees buckle outward when he tries to stand erect. He can scoot around pretty well on his knees. Problem is, Cleobelle is completely ignoring him. We tried putting him on a teat, but it didn't work. We could barely get Mom to stand still, and the lamb had a lot of trouble latching on.

We debated whether we should try to rescue him, or if we should simply euthanize him. After all, it's quite possible the ewe "knows something" about the lamb that we don't; we've found that the mother animals' instincts about which offspring to reject/abandon often turn out to be based on a fundamental defect. In the end, though, we decided to at least give him a shot. Every little creature here deserves that. Our 11 year old even offered to make this his "project." If nothing else, it'll give him a sense of responsibility.

We cleaned the little lamb up with warm water, then patted him down with towels and worked him over a bit with the blow drier. I gave him some colostrum replacer, but he didn't swallow it very well. We also "drenched" him with 5cc of cod liver oil, by slowly squeezing it out of a syringe at the back of his tongue. Mrs Yeoman Farmer found that remedy in one of her books; it's supposed to help with tendon problems. I then fed him some goat milk, again by dribbling it out of a syringe, because his suck didn't seem very strong. By now he was pretty worn out, so we made him comfortable in a basket by the fire.

It's been a few hours, and he doesn't seem to be responding very well. I have my doubts that he'll make it through the night. But at least we'll know we did all we could to help him, and that we at least made his short time with us as pleasant an experience as possible.

Mrs. Fletcher Delivers!

Remember FletcherBelle, the massively pregnant ewe who'd "fallen, and couldn't get up" the other night?

This morning, she delivered two beautiful little ewe lambs:

For those of you keeping score at home, that's five lambs total --- all of them female. And all are doing great so far.

Spring is wonderful. Especially after a winter like the one we just had.

Sunday Evening Surprise

Lambing season is definitely upon us, and every trip to the barn now brings with it a sense of expectation. Which ewe will be in labor? Which might have even delivered?

This evening, we discovered that our pure white ewe had given us a beautiful pure white female lamb:

While mom dove into the hay with the rest of the flock, the happy new arrival stayed close by and observed the action.

Here's hoping that the rest of the lambing season goes this smoothly. Tomorrow is supposed to be 62F and clear, easily the warmest day of the year so far. Would sure be nice if a big bunch of ewes decided to deliver then.

Spring is Back! (And so am I...)

Where has the time gone? One thing led to another, and the next I knew...the blog had been dormant for two years. Thanks to all who sent messages encouraging me to post again, and my apologies for the length of time it has taken to get back in the saddle.

What's been happening? After my last post, in the spring of 2012, professional work more or less took over the rest of that year. As a public opinion research consultant, presidential election years are my absolute busiest time --- and 2012 turned out to be even busier than usual. In addition to voter microtargeting, and analyzing survey data, I am also part of CNN's election night decision team; we're the ones who decide when to project a race for a particular candidate.

Then, shortly after the election, we got big news of great joy: Mrs Yeoman Farmer and I were expecting a baby. However, the pregnancy turned out to be a physically challenging one for MYF, which meant the rest of the family needed to come together in supporting her and picking up a bigger share of the farm work. The garden was scaled back, as were the numbers of livestock we were raising.

Our new baby girl was due in mid-August, but couldn't wait to join the fun. In mid-July, more than five weeks ahead of schedule, she decided it was time to get moving. At 7am on a Monday morning, in the car driving home from the airport after a wonderful weekend trip visiting friends and family in Seattle, I got the call from MYF that her water had broken. Once back at the farm, I whisked MYF to the hospital. We spent the rest of the day there, undergoing tests and observations, until the medical team decided Baby Girl needed to come out by emergency Cesarean.

Baby Girl is doing well and thriving now, but there were numerous complications that kept her in the NICU for nearly a month. And then she needed heart surgery in October. I will write more about some of these issues in future posts --- but for those interested in a general overview of what we went through, I recently had an article published which describes that roller-coaster. Thanks to the skills of some truly amazing medical professionals, and the prayers of countless people all over the world, Baby Girl is expected to live a long and very happy life.

I don't want to dwell too much on the brutal winter we're now finally emerging from here in the Upper Midwest. Suffice it to say that this was easily the worst winter I've personally experienced in my 45 years. The snow that fell before Christmas is still out in our pasture. Our hay field finally became visible again last week, as did our lawn. We expect cold winters in Michigan, but what made this one so difficult was its relentlessness. Usually, we get an arctic blast and some snow --- and then a few days where the temps go above freezing, the snow melts, and it's merely "cold" for a little while before the next storm passes through. Those periodic thaws are the stepping stones that make Midwestern winters tolerable.

This year, we didn't get a single thaw for the entire winter. All the snow that fell...stayed. And no one knew what to do with it. We shoveled and shoveled our driveway, but soon had walls of snow high on both sides. Our church, and many big shopping centers with large parking lots, have enormous mountains of plowed snow that have now turned into stubborn icebergs. We joke that kids will still be sledding on these things in mid-May, when it's sixty degrees out.

Today it's in the forties, and is expected to stay above freezing all the way into next week. Our whole property is rapidly turning into a mud bog, but I'll take that over the snow. It's unclear when things will dry out enough to allow planting, or when the pasture will revive enough to turn the animals out on it. This year, it seems that all bets are off. So, we're taking things one day at a time. I'm just glad we put in a larger-than-usual supply of hay. And firewood.

We had several goat kids born over the course of the winter, and are now enjoying an excellent supply of milk from the does. Surprisingly, despite the bitter cold, almost all of the kids survived. We lost a  couple of them, but for the most part were able to keep the barn buttoned up tightly enough to keep them from freezing to death. I also discovered a very useful tool for winter kidding: a blow-drier! The mother goats usually get the kids licked off to dry them, but in the dead of winter...a nice warm blast of air from a hair drier gave some much-needed assistance. Also, getting the kids thoroughly warmed up means their bodies are less stressed. It seems to have helped a lot.

But the true heralds of spring are the lambs. And our first ones were born last night! I went out to the barn a little before midnight to make my final checks, and discovered that one of our mature ewes, Conundrum, had delivered a set of twin females. Both were on their feet, but pretty wet. I tried to give an assist with the hair drier, but Conundrum objected loudly. Given that it wasn't terribly cold last night, and that our Icelandic ewes are outstanding mothers, I decided to butt out. And, indeed, they had a good night. Both lambs were dry and dancing around this morning.

I'll leave you with some pictures of them (note the snow shovel used to block a gap in the door -- there's a stubborn chunk of frozen dirt that's preventing the door from sliding all the way shut):

Notice the black one was even climbing all over Mom:

It's good to be back and blogging again. I promise the next post will take less than two years to go up!

Every Other Day Now

Our unbelievably good, summer-like weather has continued; we topped out in the eighties today! On March 21st! And there's no sign of a letup. Things are supposed to be really nice all the way into next week.

Fortunately, the sheep are continuing to take advantage of the warm temperatures by delivering their lambs now. (Obviously the deliveries are timed by the gestation period and not by weather, but it's a very fortunate coincidence.) The third of our ten ewes lambed this morning; she had male and female twins, but the male was stillborn. The female appears very healthy, and by late afternoon was already out and exploring the barnyard.

And, much to her mother's consternation, had also figured out how to get on the wrong side of the fence that separates the sheep from the goats:

With a little intervention from the Yeoman Farmer, things were again put right:

Mother and lamb are happy.

And so is the whole Yeoman Farm Family.

Spring Keeps Coming

Early lambing continues on the farm, as we had a wonderful early-morning suprise in the barn at chore time:

The lamb is a singleton, and she is HUGE. By the time I arrived, she'd been on her feet and licked nearly dry. She's the first lamb ever born to this particular mother (a name for whom we have yet to decide on), who was herself born very late in the spring of 2010. Last year was a little too early for her to lamb, so she seems to have "saved it up" and given us a really nice little girl now.

I managed to catch this shot of the three generations:

Mom is nearest, nuzzling her lamb. Grand-damme Biancha is in the background, chewing cud.

Spring Comes Early

Spring doesn't technically arrive until next week, but we've been reveling in several straight days of unseasonably warm weather. And when I say warm, I mean warm: highs in the seventies every day since Wednesday, and it's supposed to continue well into next week.

For those of us who brace for typically frigid Michigan winters, this balmy streak has been a wonderful gift. We even fired up the grill this evening, and enjoyed a dinner of lamb steaks (with potatoes from last year's garden, and some cabbage to celebrate St. Patrick's Day).

Speaking of lambs, they decided to come a little early this year as well. Enigma surprised us this evening with twins, a male and a female:

March 17th ties a record for our earliest lambing ever; it's only happened on our farm once before.

Enigma was a triplet, and one of the first lambs ever born to us. She was the product of Dot (the flock matriarch who passed away on Good Friday last year) and a magnificent ram. She's our second-oldest ewe (and, come to think of it, our second-oldest animal of any type), so we're not sure how many more lambs she'll produce. She tends to do an outstanding job of mothering, and hopefully her female will grow up to be a replacement breeder.

I love Spring!

Emergency Butchering

Strange things happen when you're away from a farm for nine or ten days.

We have twin yearling sheep, born late last spring. Neither was of butchering size last fall, so we decided to keep the female as a breeder and to butcher the male this coming fall. The female is as strong and healthy as can be, but the male recently developed a problem: his right horn began growing toward his face.

When we left on vacation early this month, the horn still seemed to have plenty of clearance; it was something to keep tabs on, but it didn't seem to require immediate action to cut off.

Imagine my dismay when we got home, settled back in, and I got my first good look at him. And discovered that the horn was not just pressing against his face --- it was growing straight into his right EYE.

I immediately grabbed some bolt cutters and lopped off the end of his horn, but the damage had unfortunately been done. His eye looked irreparably injured. He didn't like it, but I did my best to clean the eye socket up with hydrogen peroxide.

We kept close tabs on him in the ensuing days. Despite the mangled eye, he seemed to be getting around just fine. He came in and out, and grazed with the rest of the flock. We continued to plan to butcher him this fall.

Then, especially with the arrival of the recent heat wave, we began having second thoughts. He started going AWOL, hanging out by himself on the ridge (and down by the swampy area) on the far end of the pasture a lot. Last night, he didn't come in at all. I spent a lot of time searching the pasture with a spotlight, but couldn't find him anywhere. I worried that the heat had become too much for him, or that he'd gotten dangerously dehydrated, or that a predator had overtaken him. Surviving 95F and humidity is tough enough for us humans; imagine if you're wearing a wool coat and battling an eye injury on top of it!

This morning, I found him hunkered down along the fence by the swampy area. His coat was a mess, but he jumped to his feet as he saw me approach. When he began trotting away along the ridge, I grew even happier. Being spry enough to run away is a very, very good thing. He ran all the way up the hill to the barn, which really got me feeling optimistic.

And then, once I'd cornered him in the barn and grabbed him, I realized we had a problem. A big one. With the heat, flies had evidently been swarming all over his injury. All around the socket, I could see the quivering of tiny larvae. It turned my stomach, and I knew we had to do something.

Given that the heat would only be making the situation more miserable, and that trying to clean out the injured socket would probably bring only temporary relief, and that we'd been planning to butcher him anyway, and that he was now of a nice butchering size...it was fairly evident what course of action we should take.

The problem is that the local slaughterhouse where we take our animals only does sheep on certain days of the week. I figured I'd have to wait until next Monday or Tuesday to get him in, and a quick call over there confirmed that. I certainly didn't want to try butchering him myself in 95 degree weather (just imagine the flies!), but I wasn't sure he'd survive the weekend. And even if he did, he'd be miserable.

I described the situation to the woman who'd answered the phone, and she quickly put the shop owner (Jack) on the line. "How quickly can you get him over here?" Jack asked. They were done slaughtering for the week, but he was just finishing up a cow and said he'd have time to squeeze my sheep in today...if I could get him right over.

This is why I love patronizing Mom and Pop businesses.

Homeschooled Farm Boy and I put a tarp down in the back of our minivan, loaded up the injured animal, and set off for the butcher. Once there, Jack met us around back and helped unload him into a holding pen. We thanked him repeatedly for getting the sheep in on such short notice, and then drove home.

It's unfortunate we weren't able to get the sheep through to this fall, but I really don't think he would've put on much more weight between now and then. I'm just very grateful that we identified the seriousness of the injury before it got to be too late, that the sheep will not have to endure the heat and flies this weekend ... and that we were able to add 40-50 pounds of excellent meat to our freezer.

Puddles Grows Up

I've been swamped with work (and trying to stay ahead of the grass which never seems to stop growing), but wanted to give a quick update. Puddles the Goat Kid is now nearly three months old, and thriving:

Her broken leg has completely healed, thanks to an outrageous amount of duct tape. I still bottle feed her a couple of times a day, which provides a good use for the milk that we can't use (because goats stepped in it during milking, etc.). She bleats and comes running when I call her. But otherwise, she's integrating well into the rest of the herd, and spends all her days with them in the pasture. Given where she started from, 95% dead on the floor of a frozen barn in mid-March, and then with a broken leg, her current condition qualifies as pretty much miraculous.

Sadly, I can't say the same thing for Ellipsis the Lamb. We gave it everything we could for her, but she was not able to integrate with the flock (no bummer lamb we've had ever has been able to do it). She was more a pet than anything else, and I bottle fed her several times a day, but something wasn't right in her little system. I'm not sure if it's because she was eating too much stuff other than milk at too young an age. Or what. But a few weeks ago, we found her dead out in the pasture. She'd been looking a little bloated earlier that day, but had seemed to be getting around okay. And then, just as suddenly, she wasn't.

It was very sad, particularly since she was the last of Dot's line and we'd really wanted to keep her. But such is farm life, especially when livestock are involved. You give everything you have, as a good shepherd and steward. Sometimes they thrive. Sometimes they don't. It's a great mystery, and I certainly don't claim to understand it. We just keep plugging away, and keep doing everything we can for our little flock.

Lamb Concern (Updated)

After the amazement of Dot's delivery last night, the reality of the situation is setting in --- and it's not looking great.

First off, the male (black) lamb is much smaller than his (white) sister. As noted yesterday, I thought the male had been born dead. But he did manage to get up and walk...and, multiple times, get through the fence into the chicken area. So did the white lamb.

This happened, in large part, because Dot wasn't very much interested in either lamb. She didn't call to them, or urge them to nurse, or anything else. It didn't seem like she was rejecting them (we've seen that and know what it looks like), but more like she was just plain tired. She seemed content to simply lay on the floor and chew her cud, while the lambs wandered off. I turned off the lights, hoping that with darkness they'd be less adventure-prone.

Didn't help. I had to search all over for them this morning, and neither was near Dot. But at least, I thought, they're strong enough to walk. I had Homeschooled Farm Girl help me move Dot and both twins into the now-empty goat kidding pen. I figured that would help the three of them bond more effectively, especially since we had to be gone for much of the day and couldn't keep close tabs on them.

I tried to get the little black lamb to nurse. He definitely seemed interested, but once the teat was in his mouth he would just sit there. No suckle. He got a little bit, but then Dot started moving. The bigger lamb was much more active, and much better at suckling. She took quite a bit.

After doing some other chores, and helping to get the kids ready for church, I made another stop in the barn to help get the lambs tanked up. The little black one was just so small and weak, he wouldn't even suckle. We had to leave, so I didn't have the chance to do more for him. I will try to get something into him with a dropper this evening, but it wouldn't surprise me if we lose him.

Big sister, by contrast, again nursed well --- at least when I held Dot in place. But Dot was starting to act irritated at both of them, almost like she wanted to reject them. It became a huge struggle to keep Dot from walking away when I put either of them on a teat. I'm hoping they work it out today while we're gone, but I'm mentally preparing myself to bottle feed them all the way. Especially since, in an email exchange with our breeder, we learned that these old ewes often don't produce nearly as much milk as they did when younger.

I'll close this "downer" update with something more amusing: while I was out of the barn this morning, and Dot was busy eating hay, both lambs somehow found their way into the corner of the pen, where a barn cat has been raising three little kittens. When I came back, the mother cat was away, but all five babies were curled up together in a big inter-species pile! One of those priceless scenes I really wish I'd had a camera to capture. The kittens even cried when I took the lambs away. Maybe they'll be back there when we return home this morning...

Or maybe the barn cat will adopt the little black lamb! That would solve everything. And put us in a record book somewhere.

UPDATE:
We got home, to a mixed scene. The black lamb, unfortunately (but not unexpectedly), had expired sometime during the day. The white lamb was doing well, but Dot did seem to have rejected her. I managed to hold Dot steady long enough for the lamb to get a good meal; one advantage of Dot's advanced age is that she no longer has the strength to fight me and escape the way she used to. Her udder seemed quite large and full, so milk production doesn't seem to be a problem.

I'm not crazy about going out to hold Dot for nursing several times a day, and we may end up bottle feeding eventually. But for now, the lamb needs the colostrum. And we'll do whatever's necessary to help her along.

Head Count

It was chaos in the sheep area when I went out to close it up for the night. Of the eight lambs we've had born so far, six are almost entirely black and a seventh is mostly black. Only one is mostly white. All the black lambs are about the same age and size. The challenge is trying to get an accurate head count while all these little guys are swarming and weaving in and out among the various adults.

Over and over I counted, and I kept coming up with seven. I could've sworn we'd had eight lambs born so far, but it's becoming a blur. Maybe it was only seven. Or was it eight? As I secured the barn, I began composing an update to the previous blog post in my head. It was going to start out, "Okay. So, I can't add."

But what if I was wrong about being wrong? What if it really was eight? Why was I only coming up with seven? I stopped, stepped away from the chaos, and calmly reviewed what I knew to be true. Conundrum, Bianca and Maybelle each had a single. Three. Licorice had triplets. Six. And we had twins born today. Eight. Eight. But I can only find seven lambs!

I jogged into the house and retrieved my big pistol grip spotlight. (As noted last summer, this is a truly essential tool when living in the country.) I ran back to the fenced-in area outside the sheep area, and swept the spotlight across the whole thing.

And, within seconds, I spotted him. Number Eight. He was pure black, and had curled up in an old rubber feed bowl for the night. I never would've seen him with just the light coming from the barn. As I lit him up, he lifted his head and looked at me, but didn't make a sound. It took just a few more seconds to run to him, lift him into my arms, and carry him back around to barn's main entrance (I'd of course already secured the sheep door from the inside).

And that was that. The parable of the Lost Sheep, come to life. Lots to think about and contemplate; even if I might sometimes lose count and get confused from time to time, the Good Shepherd never will. And that Good Shepherd is infinitely more concerned about my welfare and security, and is prepared to go much farther to bring me back to safety, than I ever could for a member of my own little flock.

Seven and Eight

Our seventh and eighth lambs arrived earlier today, courtesy of one of Maybelle's daughters:

Both are males, and both are doing nicely so far.

I don't think we ever settled on a name for this mother ewe. By tradition, she needed "belle" as part of her name, but we never came agreement beyond that. It's her second lambing, and she's looking to be as prolific as her mother.

Five ewes have delivered, meaning our lambing percentage is at 160% so far this year; 150% is the standard we like to shoot for, so we're doing well. Two more ewes have yet to deliver, not counting Dot (who turns twelve on April 21st of this year). We're not counting on the old girl to lamb this year...but who knows?

Lambing Continues

In April on our farm, every morning is like Christmas morning; you're never quite sure what new gift will be waiting when you open up the barn doors.

Today, Bianca surprised us with a beautiful little ram lamb:

I say "surprised," because she lambed fairly late last year. (We kept both of those 2010 lambs of hers over the winter, because neither was of butchering size last fall.) And she's certainly starting to get up there in age. But the new lamb is healthy, and Bianca is going strong. So, power to her.

As noted in the update to yesterday's post, it turns out we had a set of triplets and a singleton born on Tuesday, rather than two sets of twins.

Maybelle seems to be enjoying her first singleton after eight straight sets of twins. He already has a very beautiful fleece.

Maybelle is quite milky, but the continuous sets of twins have kept us from trying to milk her. Homeschooled Farm Girl is talking about giving it a try this year; it'll be interesting if we can get her into the stanchion, and get enough milk to make cheese.

Licorice's triplets (two males, one female) are doing great. I deliberately left the photo below "widely cropped," to give a better sense of how crazy the scene can get in our barn. Licorice has three lambs. There's a Buff Orpington hen off to the left. Conundrum and her lamb are in the background, along with a goose. Three more geese are up near Licorice.

This place is a madhouse. But lots and lots of fun. And will get even more fun later today, when the chicks arrive. But that's a separate post.

Lambs in Full Force (Updated)

It was chilly this morning, but beautiful and sunny. Great morning to go out to the barn and discover that TWO ewes had delivered a total of FOUR lambs overnight, and all were healthy.

Licorice's lambs were driest, so she apparently had delivered her two males first:

Maybelle, who is usually the first ewe to deliver, slipped to third place this year with this beautiful boy and girl:

Will be interesting to see if we get any more born today. At least one more of the ewes is looking enormous and ready to go any time.

BTW, as an aside, Puddles the Goat Kid has now made a complete transition to the barn. She's been sleeping there every night, and hasn't been inside my office in a few days. She even seems to be playing well with the other goat kids. Simply unbelievable the progress she's made; this is by far one of the most rewarding parts of raising livestock.

UPDATE: Later in the day, the parentage of the lambs became more clear. It turns out that Licorice had in fact had triplets, and Maybelle had a singleton. With the chaos in the sheep area, one of Licorice's triplets was following Maybelle around. But in the afternoon, they'd sorted themselves out correctly.

This is the first time in her nine lambings that Maybelle has not twinned. It's also the first time she's delivered in April rather than March. As Homeschooled Farm Girl pointed out, "She is getting old, Daddy." For the record: this is Licorice's sixth lambing, and her third set of triplets.

Here Come the Lambs

The calendar has said "spring" for over a week, but it's only barely felt like it outside here in Michigan.

This new happy arrival got the lambing season started right:

He's big, beautiful, and doing extremely well. As is his mother (Conundrum). It's definitely starting to feel more like spring here on our farm.

Just Another Week

The light at the end of the tunnel is beginning to come into sight, as the busiest season for my professional work winds down. I appreciate your forbearance with the slow posting, and I look forward to posting more frequently going forward this fall.

In between the craziness with work, here is a sampling of what it's been like living on a farm for the past week or so:

Dot's lamb is thriving, and managing to keep up with her mother all around the pasture. It's a big pasture, and they occasionally lose sight of each other; we can tell because the lamb begins a piercing high pitched bleat. Dot usually comes and finds her soon thereafter. It's been a real joy watching Dot mother another lamb; it wouldn't surprise me if this is the last time she gets to do it.

That said, Dot's instincts sometimes conflict with our own. The first couple of nights with her lamb, she attempted to bed down in the wooded ridge on the far end of the pasture. I'm sure she was seeking privacy and shelter, but the lamb would've been easy pickings for any number of predators --- from raccoons to owls. When I did my head count at the barn the first evening, Dot was noticeably absent. Having gotten to know her pretty well over these years, I had a good idea as to where she'd be hiding out. I grabbed the spotlight and crossed the pasture to the ridge; sure enough, that's where she'd bedded down. Much to Dot's chagrin, I grabbed the lamb and began jogging across the pasture to the barn. The lamb bleated, and Dot came running. It was actually kind of amusing listening to her continual protest "Meeah" sounds as we jogged.

Dot tried the same trick the next night, and I again didn't catch on until it was pitch dark. The third night, I dispatched the Yeoman Farm Children to the ridge just before dusk, and they did the honors. In the meantime, I spotted an older lamb which had gotten its horns stuck in the pasture fence farther down the ridge. I freed it, and it ran across the pasture to rejoin the rest of the flock. In the days since, Dot has begun coming into the barn on her own with the rest of the flock at dusk.

We've been taking Wilbur the puppy along whenever we do chores or work with the livestock. When we went to retrieve Dot and her lamb, for example, I took Wilbur with me on a leash. He's no help with herding yet, but I want him to experience as many different aspects of farm life as possible. For the more routine tasks, he's beginning to follow me even without a leash. Each morning, he accompanies me as I let the sheep out, fill water tanks, feed chickens, get hay for goats, and feed turkeys. And then he does it again in the evening. Puppies have such boundless energy, it's nice giving him a chance to work some of it off.

Wilbur hangs out in my office with me much of the rest of the day, and he's about 70% of the way toward being housebroken. He hits the paper most of the time, but the biggest frustration is getting him to relieve himself outside. Often after running around the farm with me, he'll wait until he's returned to my office to relieve himself on the paper.

We had a litter of kittens born in the barn over the weekend. They were very much unwanted and unplanned (we didn't get the cat fixed in time), but the cat fortunately only had two of them. Unfortunately, though, the mother cat has been doing a poor job caring for them. I was inclined to let nature take its course, but Cat Girl is having none of it. She and her brothers have taken it upon themselves to bottle feed the things. As of this morning, the prognosis for one kitten wasn't good. But Cat Girl is working hard to save the other one.

Speaking of the Yeoman Farm Children, Yeoman Farm Baby contracted the chicken pox a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't a big deal, and Mrs. Yeoman Farmer treated it effectively with homeopathic remedies. YFB got over it toward the end of last week. Now, you guessed it, the others have begun coming down with it. Homeschooled Farm Boy wasn't feeling well last night, and began breaking out with pox this morning. Little Big Brother began breaking out this afternoon. We figure Homeschooled Farm Girl isn't far behind.

Pears have begin falling off our tree in the front yard, and I've enjoyed tossing the blemished ones over the fence. The sheep see them, and the word spreads quickly through the whole flock. Within minutes, they're all happily munching as many as I can throw. Then the geese come honking in to join the feast. It's better than television. Really.

On a sad note, we lost one of our oldest roosters this afternoon. Sardine had been the Alpha Rooster for a long time, but got deposed in a cockfight earlier this year. He went into exile, sleeping in a far corner of the barn each night for months. For awhile it looked like he was plotting a Rocky-like comeback, and he did roost with the flock for a time, but in the last few days he'd begun sleeping out in the pasture at night. Annoying me to no end, he would begin crowing at 4am near the house. Always the widest-ranging of the flock, he would regularly cross our road during the day to forage in the neighboring fields. This afternoon, he met the same fate that Scooter met a couple of weeks ago; I found his crumpled body along the side of the road. I won't miss his pre-dawn crowing, but Sardine had been "one of the gang" and a fixture on our farm for years. He's one of the few remaining birds that came with us in the "Noah's Ark on Wheels" from Illinois. So...it's sad to lose him, but I'm glad he had a long and happy life.

Just another week of farm life. What's ahead? Our first harvest of honey from the bee hive. About a dozen old laying hens need butchering. Potatoes need to be dug. And who knows what other surprises we may find in the pasture...

Surprise!

As I drove past the pasture this morning, I took a look over at the sheep. They were beautifully spread out and grazing, as usual. And then I spotted something that hadn't been there earlier: a tiny black lamb, tagging along behind her mother.

This was a shocker, first, because Icelandics almost never deliver lambs this late in the year. Our previous latest was August, and that's only happened once in the last eight years. Icelandics only tend to come into season in the fall, and deliver all their lambs in the early spring.

It's also a shock because the ewe in question, Dot, is now eleven years old. I honestly wasn't expecting her to lamb this year. She's the leader of the flock, and so we intend to keep her until she dies of natural causes at as ripe of an old age as possible...but we'd pretty much resigned ourselves to her lambing days being over.

On the farm, marvels never cease. Now we just have to think of a good name for our new little addition.

Waiting is Over!

Yesterday, we were watching and waiting for Bianca to deliver her lambs. We continued keeping a close eye on her, but nothing happened overnight or this morning. Then, I got home this afternoon from running errands and checked for her in the barn. It was a warm day, and most of the flock was inside panting from the heat. But there was no sign of Bianca. A quick scan of the pasture revealed no sign of her, either.

I set off across the pasture and through the swampy area at the far end of it, and climbed the ridge that rises to our property line. Sure enough, in the most sheltered and out-of-the-way place she could find, she'd made her delivery. Two beautiful white lambs! Both had been licked almost completely dry, and seemed healthy. One male, one female. Interestingly, the female is significantly larger than the male. I think the female is going to be a keeper, to replace Nera.

Anyway, the problem was getting Bianca and the two lambs all the way to the barn. I solved it by picking up one lamb in each arm, and setting off along the path that runs the top of the ridge. Bianca followed close behind, sometimes even brushing and bumping into me, bellowing one "Meaaah!" after another. I kept up a running conversation with her as we continued walking. Finally, when we got back to the barn, I set both lambs down and she rushed to "claim" them. I got out of the way, stood back, and watched until I'd seen both of them nurse.

Here are the two of them, running to be with her in the paddock behind the barn:

And the three of them, with Conundrum (another of our mature ewes).

June lambing is on the late side; this is among the latest deliveries we've ever had (Bianca holds our record, with an August 4 delivery one year). But it's nice not having to worry about freezing weather. Hopefully with temps in the 80s today these two new arrivals will be getting off to a strong start.

Waiting and Watching

After last month's lambing disaster, we've been mulling lessons learned and thinking about what we can do differently going forward.

The biggest, as I've noted in comments sections, is not to fear assisting with a delivery. We've had so many lambs born so easily, and read in so many different places that Icelandics are known for their easy lambings, I'd internalized an attitude something like the following:

The ewe knows what she's doing better than I do. Her lambs may start out tangled, but they work it out. Don't interfere. I'd only make it worse. I'd hurt her, or the lambs, if I try reaching in there and forcing something that nature isn't ready to have happen yet.

I realize this attitude sounds laughable, particularly after losing Nera last month. But it's really not much different from the attitude a person might develop if he has "puncture resistant" tires on his car, and drove tens of thousands of miles across all kinds of road hazards without ever getting a flat. Particularly if the driver had never been shown the proper way to change a flat tire, and feared damaging his car if he began wielding a lug wrench and jack willy-nilly. It might be easy to convince oneself that that thump-thump-thump noise isn't really a flat tire. Because, you know, I have puncture-resistant tires! I've never had a flat before! And besides, even if I did, I'd probably ruin the wheel if I tried to change it. And I can't call AAA, because I'm in the middle of nowhere [our situation regarding veterinarians]. So I guess I should keep driving and hope I reach my destination.

So, after one's tire shreds to rubber bits, and the wheel grinds to a halt in a sea of sparks...a person might get some lessons in how to recognize a flat tire and how to change one. Which is what we've done regarding lambing. I exchanged a number of long emails with our breeder, and she graciously shared a raft of her own lambing horror stores with me. More importantly, she also shared tips for recognizing a bad lambing (the ewe is in active labor for more than an hour without delivering a lamb) and for intervening. My big take-away: don't fear reaching inside and doing everything possible to wrestle a lamb out. If you wait too long, the lamb will die in the birth canal from stress and oxygen deprivation anyway. And if the lamb isn't freed, the ewe will certainly die. My attempts at intervention, no matter how clumsy, cannot hurt her more than that.

The rubber began hitting the road last night. We have one more ewe we expect to deliver, Bianca. She was among the very first born to us, and I have a special connection with her. As a lamb, she sustained an injury to her foot and wasn't getting up to graze. The vet treated her foot, but didn't expect her to recover; she was having too much trouble standing and grazing or nursing, and just wanted to lay around wasting away. As she was one of our only lambs, and one of our first females, and we were desperate to build our flock, I picked up the gauntlet and trooped out to the pasture several times a day to work with her. Slowly, she made her recovery. She's been a healthy and productive sheep ever since, and has gone on to provide us with ten lambs.

She got bred very late this year, and we even wondered at one point if she'd been bred at all. But lately she's definitely been showing signs of it, so I've been watching her closely. Then, last night, it was unmistakable: her udder was engorged with milk. She wasn't in labor yet, but I left the lights on in the barn at bedtime. At midnight, I couldn't stop thinking about her...so I got dressed and went back out to check. Still engorged, still looking uncomfortable, but still not in labor. My first stop this morning was the sheep area...same story. I've been watching her out in the pasture today, making sure she doesn't spend too much time in places where lambing would be problematic.

No lambs yet. But hopefully we'll have some happy arrivals soon. And I won't hesitate to intervene if needed.