The thirteenth lamb of the season was born this morning, a single ram lamb from ewe number 177.

He was up and active when I checked on the flock first thing this morning.  I’m not sure of all the reasons why spring lambing has been so much easier than the previous round in the barn, but I’m grateful for the change.

After I check over a new lamb to make sure he’s healthy and thriving, there’s a bit of necessary nastiness — inserting an ear tag, docking the tail, and castrating the ram lambs.  It seems like a lot to inflict on a newborn, but Bill Fosher argued convincingly that there’s some sort of lingering analgesia from being born, and waiting even a day or two on these procedures causes the lamb significantly more pain.  So after I catch the lamb (not trivial with these cheviot-sired lambs…  they’re fast almost from the instant they’re born), I plop him down in my lap and start with his ear tag.

Ear tags are the bulwark against chaos and confusion on the farm:  left ear for males, a different color for each year (on a 7-year cycle, based on the ROYGBIV spectrum), and a unique number for each lamb.  From a distance I can immediately tell age and sex, and if my record-keeping is good, the tag number gives me access to all the info about parents, offspring, health, and performance data.  The device for inserting the tags is simple enough that even I can operate it one-handed while holding a squirming lamb with the other.

If I’m quick with the pliers, the lamb barely flinches.  The only real trick is to avoid hitting one of the veins in the ear.  The next step is docking the lamb’s tail to prevent problems with fly strike.  My understanding is that shepherds used to accomplish this with hot knives or crushing devices; the current state of the art is the application of a tight rubber band, much easier on the shepherd, and hopefully the lamb as well.

And finally, the boys get castrated, again with a band applied from the Elastrator.  The challenge is making sure the testes are in the scrotum, as lambs are surprisingly good at sucking them into their abdomen as soon as you start messing with them.  Hard to blame them.

And here’s #713 a few seconds after I finished with him.  I’m consistently relieved to see that the lambs don’t show much sign of being bothered, and usually go right back to nursing.