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| Dot and Dash, our bottle feds of 2016 |
So we left our story with us having four sheep of roughly
the same age. Two ewes – Jenson and Mary, and two castrated wethers – Philippe
and Ronald. The plan was to send the boys to the freezer, fatten two more
bottle-fed lambs and mate the two girls with a borrowed, unrelated ram. The new
lambs arrived in the April, a castrated wether and another ewe – so we named
them Dash and Dot. By the September, the Philippe and Ronald were in the
freezer. On November 6th we
separated the lambs away from the ewes and brought in the ram. He didn’t come
with a name so we called him Romeo, then later Rambo as there didn’t seem to be
much romance going on. In fact, there didn’t seem to be anything going on. Were
they just shy? Frantic internet searches followed to check if the ram (actually
a spring lamb himself) was up to the job being so young ... and apparently he
was. Perhaps he didn’t fancy our girls. Anyway, the plan was to keep them
together until the new year and the day arrived in early January for him to go
back. Whilst filling in all the paperwork associated with shifting animals
around the countryside, our sheep expert noticed Dash and asked if he had been
castrated. Yes, of course, why? Apparently he may not have been as a result of
an ill-fitting castration band – not of our doing. Although he didn’t have all
the necessary equipment visible, he could still be fertile. This could mean
that he may have already mated with all the girls in the flock, including our
Dottie! So what does that mean practically? It could mean three pregnant ewes,
each possibly producing two lambs. For Dottie, it could be difficult birth
being so small and so young. It could mean birthing of lambs towards the end of
March and it could also mean that we have our own ram already helping himself
whenever the girls come into season. We could send him to the freezer but he is
hardly big enough to fill a sandwich.
Ewes are pregnant for five months during which they don’t
tend to show any signs of pregnancy until the final month. If we feed them as
pregnant ewes they will be ok or they may not be pregnant and they will just
get fat. In a commercial flock, the ewes can be ultrasound scanned to work out
how many lambs they are carrying and their feed adjusted accordingly. This
isn’t viable for such a small flock but if we over feed them they could end up
with BIG babies and again, difficult births. If we under feed them, they could
abort their pregnancies or produce small underdeveloped lambs. I had a cunning
plan. If I sprayed a blob on the back of Jenson and regularly measured her
girth, if she was getting bigger week on week, she could be pregnant. Setting
that against a condition score to make sure that she wasn’t getting fat, we decided
that she was indeed pregnant.
Into April and we noticed the development of the girls
‘udders’. Convinced they were pregnant as planned, I set about watching youtube
videos of ‘signs of labour in sheep’. Sure enough during the Saturday of the
Easter weekend Mary stopped eating. She had been quite an enthusiastic eater
but I noticed that she wasn’t really engaging with the idea of eating. I called
this her thoughtful stage.
At 3.15am on Easter Sunday I was awake. Lying in bed and
wide awake I convinced myself that it would be a good idea to go and check on
Mary. It was very cold and dark but sure enough, there was with a ‘water bag’
hanging from her rear end. I scurried back inside to get some more clothes on
and grab my well equipped birthing box, I returned to hear a tiny bleating sound.
She had given birth to a ewe lamb. We were convinced that she was having two so
managed to isolate her into a smaller area of the sheep pen where she could be
away from the other sheep. Her first lamb was up on its feet and seeking some
nourishment whilst Mary continued to strain for lamb number 2.
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| Mary and her lambs at about 5.30am Easter Sunday |
It was a bitterly cold morning and I was soon joined by
Warren which gave me the chance to go inside for even more cloths, check the
temperature outside, 5C feels like 2C and I returned with gloves and a heavier
coat. I was noticing that the ewe lamb was getting cold and shivering. I was
reluctant to remove it from Mary and it had snuggled down into the straw whilst
Mary strained on. We decided to construct the lambing pen inside the shed which
would provide us with the heat lamp. Warren set about this job whilst I kept an
eye on Mary. She was still straining but I could see a pair of hooves. By 5am,
lamb number two had finally slithered out onto the cold straw. I could see that
the birthing bag was still intact and having strained for an hour and 40
minutes, Mary was now lying down and not taking much notice of either of her
new lambs. I decided now was the time to intervene and quickly removed the
birthing membrane from around the lamb’s head and nose. The lamb started to
kick and shake his head and then finally bleat. A boy! I dragged the soggy lamb
around to Mary’s head where she promptly stood up and started to lick him. Lamb
number 1 was getting quite cold by now but the shed was ready. We grabbed the
two lambs and encouraged Mary to follow us into the shed. The ewe lamb was
placed under the heat lamp in the corner of the lambing pen and we watched as
Mary continued to lick her babies. Eventually the ewe lamb was revived by the
extra heat and stood to feed from her Mum. Phew! Thank goodness for youtube
videos. We could have come down to find one suffocated lamb and one dead from
hypothermia. Instead we had two healthy lambs with Mary safe inside the shed.
On Easter Monday we fitted the docking bands to their tails
and a castration band to the ram ewe, having named the ewe lamb Athena and the
‘ram’ lamb Aries.
That was one ewe done, just one to go.
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