It was pea-soupy on the farm this morning after last night’s storm.
Travels with Musti
Dogs, nature, photography, and the meaning of life, with apologies to J.S.
Posts tagged “triplets”
I was particularly grateful for the border collies when Musti died. They don’t brook any wallowing, always asking “What’s next?”, and they pulled me through a difficult time. It seems that sheep have some of the same world view (I wonder who learned it from whom…). We lost two lambs during the snowstorm on Saturday night, and the forsaken triplet lamb died some time over Sunday night. But this morning, the Katahdins were back at it, with twins and triplets waiting for me in the field first thing.
These triplets are bigger and more vigorous than the previous set, and the ewe seems to be taking good care of all three. The challenge over the next couple of months will be getting her enough food to nurse all of them without her turning into a bag of bones. The safe decision would be to pen her and her lambs and feed her tons of corn every day, but then I’d never find out if she has the genetics to pull of the trick eating just grass. TBC…
Tagged: border collies, cheviot, Hollow Oak Farm, Katahdin, lambs, Musti, pasture lambing, triplets, twins
Yesterday I noticed that one of the twin sets was much smaller than the other. I was curious about the cause of the difference but didn’t come to any conclusions. During my first flock check this morning, I found an extra lamb — tiny, no ear tag, and looking decidedly unloved. He was hanging out with Orca, one of the ewes that bore twins yesterday, trying to nurse, but she was actively butting him away. I took a quick look around to see if anyone new had lambed (a katahdin had just twinned, but this lamb didn’t look like he was half katahdin), but didn’t find an obvious candidate to be his mom. Then I realized that my mystery lamb explained the tiny twins; they were in fact triplets, and the third one was born after I thought all the action was over for the evening.
I brought little #3 over to River, the ewe with yesterday’s tiny twins; he matched, convincing me that my intuition was right, but mom wanted less than nothing to do with him. Whenever he tried to nurse, she butted or kicked him away. Number 3 was dirty and looked like he hadn’t eaten since birth, and I was starting to feel a little frazzled. He’s the skinny one on the left.
I wanted to keep the four of them together, so I grabbed all three lambs (2 hands and an elbow) and brought them to the sorting pen at the end of the handling system. Thankfully, mom followed.
I was hoping I’d be able to hold the ewe still so #3 could nurse a bit, but the pen was too big and too round to chase a ewe into a corner, and she was not warming to her third lamb. I knew I needed to get the family into a jug in the barn, but I was worried that I couldn’t manage the move alone. That’s the moment when my friend and electrician Manning Driscoll showed up and allowed me to press him into service (whew!); we got the four into the barn quickly and easily.
Even in the confined space of the jug, the ewe was still managing to act on her murderous impulses toward #3, so I restricted her movements until her attitude improves. With a semi-immobilized ewe, I was able to get all three lambs nursing, sometimes a bit of a traffic jam.
Tagged: barn, Brab Eriksson, cheviot, dorper, ewe, halter, Hollow Oak Farm, jug, lambs, nursing, pasture, rejection, traffic jam, triplets