lambing

Lambing began today, a month early, thanks to a neighbor's buck that jumped a fence and joined our ewes a month before we turned out our bucks. I expected some early lambs and for two weeks had been aware of one particular ewe's swelling udder, but I did not think that she was ready to lamb. She was. I spotted her lamb this morning when I glanced out the window before getting out of bed, a lump in the pasture where we fed yesterday, but its head was up, a hopeful sign. While I leaped into winter gear, Jim reported that the temperature was zero degrees. I headed out with a towel from the bathroom, wrapped the ice-encrusted little bugger, and headed to the house. The ewe followed me: through the walk-through gate into our drifted yard, into the garage, and . . . into the house. A ewe in the house is a first for us; I am in awe of her maternal instincts. Sweltering in front of our wood stove, I toweled and the ewe licked. She continued to tend her lamb while I milked a generous amount of colostrum from her, enough for her lamb to suck from a bottle and two  baggies to freeze for future use. The ewe continued to tend while I scissored wool from her flanks and hind legs, trying to make her udder easily accessible to a nuzzling naive newborn.

Now, twelve hours later, the ewe and her lamb are comfortably situated in the barn in a small pen, known as a jug, under heat lamps. Certainly the ewe, in full fleece, needs no heat, but her lamb does. His ears are a lost cause; they froze and will slough off. We hope that his feet will be okay. All such extremities--tail, ears, and feet--are vulnerable. Lamb tails don't matter; they get docked anyway. Ears are cosmetic. Feet, however, are crucial.    

The outcome feels miraculous to us, considering the cold and exposure this lamb survived. Despite our sense of triumph, the day brought sadness; we found our surviving lamb's twin, a ewe lamb undoubtedly born first, frozen. If I ever become complacent about such successes and inured to such losses, it will be time to quit.