For now, blogging seems irresponsible. The mere thought of a respite devoted to writing makes me anxious and prompts me to run through my checklist. Did I forget something? Was I distracted from duty by a quickly resolved urgency? Did eagerness for quiet time overwhelm my dedication to routines—routines that have driven my days and nights, seemingly for eons: pens to clean, straw to spread, alarm clocks to set and reset depending on night temperatures and drop pen activity, bales to haul, ewes and lambs to paint brand, water buckets to fill, gates to latch, feeders to fill, orphan lambs to bottle. . . Yet here I am, perched at the keyboard, thinking that I have time. But wait, mention of that last chore reminds me to check the clock, and it is, indeed, time to feed Phoenix, the only one of our orphan lambs, AKA “bums”, still dependent on a bottle. Assuming that I don’t spot something else needing to be done, I’ll be back in a jiffy
Later:
The Phoenix of myth may have arisen from the ashes of a predecessor; this one arose from near death on a cold night, abandoned by her yearling mother and not breathing when I found her. I regret not having arrived an hour earlier, for I think the adolescent ewe’s maternal instincts would have kicked in, and her lamb would have rallied with a bit of towel drying and encouragement from the warmth of a heat lamp. Instead, I puffed some breath into her, tucked her inside my vest, and carried her to the house for a warm bath in the kitchen sink. She slept in a towel-lined box near the wood stove after receiving a tube feeding of warm colostrum, and she slept again after a second dose a couple of hours later. She made no attempt to stand until 9 AM and then readily sucked from a bottle. After that, however, I could not get her to nurse her mother, even though the ewe was cooperative. An altered adage is apropos: You can push a lamb to an udder but you can’t force it to grab hold and suck. After 24 hours, I gave up the effort; Phoenix became a bottle bum and her mother got marked as a cull.
It is common knowledge that orphan lambs need buddies. Our other bummers are penned together, but they are far too mature and rambunctious to share space with such a pip, so Phoenix has had to seek companionship wherever she can. She spins up and down the lane between mixing pens and jugs, communing with those lambs that have mothers; she pops out of the barn, through the tack room, and into sunshine, following whatever dog is available; she bunts all three dogs and Jim and me mercilessly; she follows the manure cart in its frequent journeys from the barn to the ever-growing windrow of discarded bedding and back again. Although she has not returned to the kitchen since the night of her birth, she’s a regular at all the other “joints” that we frequent. (No masks needed at any of them.) Early on, when lambing jugs were scarce, she slept in a dog crate; now that lambing is winding down, she spends nights in a jug of her own, warmed by a heat lamp and next door to a ewe with newborns. The dogs keep her spit-polish clean and compete for the opportunity to lick froth from her chin as she sucks her bottle every 4 hours.
 Dot won this lottery for milky muzzle indulgence. |  Toots earned the right to subsequent posterior delights. |
Most of our other orphan lambs derived from sets of triplets. With TLC and sufficient feed, ewes that are endowed with patience and ample milk can raise triplets. This year, however, having more ewes than usual, I had neither the time nor the space to accommodate any special needs, so each one of the seven triplet births yielded a bum lamb. They mostly defied the rule of thumb that tangled birth presentations increase proportionally to the number of lambs within. Only one threesome, out of a first time mother, came with complications, but that trio made up for the other trouble-free deliveries. Lamb #1 presented tail first, in classic breech position; I pushed the lamb back in, brought the hind feet into position and delivered it hind legs first; Lamb #2 came hind legs first—not a problem as long as delivery is fast and breathing is encouraged; Lamb #3 came front legs first but with her head folded back instead of resting nose-first between front legs. That particular presentation has been problematic for me in the past, but in this instance I managed to get her head situated correctly long enough to get the lamb out. However, the lamb so delivered would not breathe, despite my usual ministrations. I could sense Jim’s unspoken vibes as he stood by to assist if needed: “Let her go. She will be yet another bum.” Katrina, home for the weekend, knelt beside me in the jug and was beside me emotionally, as well. She did not hesitate to deliver mouth to mouth resuscitation, and at last, lamb #3 opted for life. Amazingly in hindsight, all of us survived. The ewe was exhausted but rallied to her role; she licked all three charges while crooning the deep welcoming gurgle that indicates good maternal instincts; she managed to get up and stand for her trio to suck, despite being in pain and wobbly from my crude obstetrical manipulations. A deep drink of warm water and a dose of Nutri-Drench helped. She now has two nice lambs at her side, and her last-born, head-back orphan is thriving in the bum pen. I have no regrets.
This year, for the first time, we scheduled lambing in two stages. Ewes two years old and older lambed first, beginning in late February and ending after three weeks. Those lambs are now vaccinated, docked, eartagged, and corralled only at night. After a one week pause to clean the lambing barn and re-gird for Round 2, the adolescent first-time mothers began to deliver. Now, in late April, only one of those young yearlings—bred as eight month old lambs— remains to lamb.
 Yearling ewes and their lambs |  More yearling ewes and their lambs |
That young group has been a pleasure to work with, but not everyone shares my expectation that all yearling ewes should raise at least one lamb. It makes sense to me that large-scale producers should not impose such demands on young ewes. After all, range ewes and their lambs face challenges that farm flocks do not encounter: scarce feed, scarce water, and long distances that must be traveled to reach both. However, I don’t understand why small-scale farm-flock producers are content with range flock expectations. Under the relatively cushy conditions experienced by most farm flocks, I see no reason to delay lambing until a ewe is two years old when one can gain a year of production and learn early on whether or not a ewe is a “keeper.” I prefer timely marketing of those yearlings that don’t breed or that lack maternal instincts. I’d rather not waste a year of expenses on open yearlings when the good’uns can be raising lambs? Some say that such expectations of a yearling shorten their productive life. That has not been my experience. Fifteen lambs in eight years is our goal, and we rarely keep ewes beyond eight years of age, no matter when they first lamb. Others say that early lambing stunts a ewe’s growth. It is my observation that bigger ewes are NOT better; they just eat more.
Did I mention that fifteen lambs in eight years is our goal? Well, shooting at such an average obscures the reality of both awesome and disappointing individual records that contribute to that average. The only purebred Border Leicester ewe remaining in our flock is a worthy case in point. She is eight years old and this will be her last year of production. She raised twin lambs as a yearling, triplets as a two-year old, twins as a three-year old, and triplets in each of the following four years. Deservedly, she is now tired, and her fleece, that for several years won grand or reserve awards at the state fair, is now thin. Nevertheless, she currently is raising twin lambs, and her personality has grown larger even as she has shrunk. She shows up at the gate often, hoping for Jim or me to be within earshot; her loud deep voice belies her diminutive stature, and we cater to her calls for grain as long as she is not accompanied by other ewes.
She has always been quick to take advantage of unchained gates or walk-through gates that slam shut a bit too slowly, and her lambs mimic her quick opportunism and quest for open spaces. Many times throughout the years, she and her multiple protégées have forayed joyously around hay stacks and sheds with me in dogged pursuit. Even now, she can trot faster than I can run. (Perhaps I could run faster if I swore at her less.) She stamps her lambs with that Leicester look no matter what ram she is bred to, and quite a few of our commercial ewes sport a distinctively Leicester nose and their perky upright ears, both of which suggest that I should pay more heed to gate closures and personal fitness in the years ahead.
Will Border be among the ewes culled for their antiquity later this summer? Probably not. Surely she deserves to roam free for a while--perhaps nibbling lettuce and spinach in the garden or browsing lilac and dogwood in the shelterbelt--until it’s time for the mercy of a bullet and a scenic final journey to the bone pile in our ceremonial ATV hearse.
Did I mention that fifteen lambs in eight years is our goal? Well, shooting at such an average obscures the reality of both awesome and disappointing individual records that contribute to that average. The only purebred Border Leicester ewe remaining in our flock is a worthy case in point. She is eight years old and this will be her last year of production. She raised twin lambs as a yearling, triplets as a two-year old, twins as a three-year old, and triplets in each of the following four years. Deservedly, she is now tired, and her fleece, that for several years won grand or reserve awards at the state fair, is now thin. Nevertheless, she currently is raising twin lambs, and her personality has grown larger even as she has shrunk. She shows up at the gate often, hoping for Jim or me to be within earshot; her loud deep voice belies her diminutive stature, and we cater to her calls for grain as long as she is not accompanied by other ewes.
She has always been quick to take advantage of unchained gates or walk-through gates that slam shut a bit too slowly, and her lambs mimic her quick opportunism and quest for open spaces. Many times throughout the years, she and her multiple protégées have forayed joyously around hay stacks and sheds with me in dogged pursuit. Even now, she can trot faster than I can run. (Perhaps I could run faster if I swore at her less.) She stamps her lambs with that Leicester look no matter what ram she is bred to, and quite a few of our commercial ewes sport a distinctively Leicester nose and their perky upright ears, both of which suggest that I should pay more heed to gate closures and personal fitness in the years ahead.
Will Border be among the ewes culled for their antiquity later this summer? Probably not. Surely she deserves to roam free for a while--perhaps nibbling lettuce and spinach in the garden or browsing lilac and dogwood in the shelterbelt--until it’s time for the mercy of a bullet and a scenic final journey to the bone pile in our ceremonial ATV hearse.
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