A Surprise Lamb!

Farming is so unpredictable.  You never know what is going to happen.  Animals are unpredictable.

I actually thrive on this.  I'm always ready for anything.  at any time.

We keep the hens on one side of the new horse stable and bring the horses in to be in their stalls on the other side.  It works well in the winter time because the hens need to be warm to lay eggs and the horses like to be in for the night.  We let them out during the day.

So the other morning I opened the door to go in and feed the hens and gather the eggs....when I was suddenly face to face with Pearl.  Not really face to face....she is way bigger than me!....but there she was ready to go outside.  She had broken her clasp and she was on the move!  And by the look of the alleyway of the stable she had had some fun with the bale of straw that had been left there.  It was scattered everywhere.  I just took a hold of her halter and led her to the yard.

A couple of days later I went to feed the sheep and one was stuck with its head between the rails.  It was stuck pretty bad and I tried to help it but I couldn't get her to move her head in the direction it needed to go.  I knew she was still okay as she was chewing her cud.  I don't think she had been in that position for very long.  I called Terry and luckily he wasn't very far away....on a tractor....and he came to the rescue.  We got her head unstuck and she just sort of shook it off....she was fine.  I told her not to do that again!

Last Friday the kids had a PD day....home from school.  I figured that I could put off going outside first thing....as Jack was home and he could feed the sheep.  After all....he is the shepherd....he knows those sheep way better than me.  But he had just went out when he came back in....

Mom....there is a lamb out there.  And she might be having another one.

Say what?  A lamb?  Today?  Now?

Lambs aren't suppose to start to arrive until March.  This was totally unexpected.  She isn't even in a warm barn....and we all know that a cold lamb is a dead lamb.  She didn't even bag up.

I immediately put on my winter stuff and got outside.

And it was decided that the lamb needed to come in....to the house.

I gave it the total spa treatment with my handy dandy hair dryer.  It was pretty wet as the mom really had no interest in licking it off.

Jack told me that this ewe didn't have enough milk last year for her lambs.  Great.

And she wasn't having a second lamb out there.  It was just afterbirth.  Now that's actually great.

I made up a bottle of colostrum for it to drink. Then it was warm and comfortable and full.  It had a little sleep and then when it woke up it was ready to dance....all over the house.  It didn't matter how big the box was...it was getting out!

I convince the kids that it had to go back outside.  We moved the mom ewe up into a stall in the warm horse stable.  We would put them together even though she probably doesn't have milk....and hopefully she wouldn't completely reject it and be mean to it!

I couldn't handle a lamb being in the house for much longer....I had planned to bake the six cakes for the rainbow surprise inside cake early that morning.  Now the floors needed to be scrubbed!

When we reunited them, they settled in nicely and the mom was happy to have it's baby back.  She doesn't have enough milk....I've been feeding it a bottle at least a couple of times a day.  And it's doing well.

And what will happen today?......I have no idea!

Brenda