There's more!

So far in our story we have two ewes, Mary and Jenson pregnant and two one-year old lambs looking on in bemusement. Mary has given birth to a set of twins, a ewe lamb called Athena and a ram lamb called Aries. That was very early Easter Sunday. It is put a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘having lamb for Easter’ but we had a three bird roast. I was reminded after the birth of Mary’s lambs of the dangers of walking around our smallholding in the dim light of dawn, carrying a hurdle and not noticing where the rabbit holes are when I put one foot into one. Clutching the hurdle and grimacing with the pain, I hobbled on to finish the construction of the nursery pen. Mary had been moved into the shed which already housed a marvellous sheep pen which has a heat lamp mounted in one corner. Checking the ankle later, it was badly swollen but I had an Easter dinner to sort out. Once that was done, it was first aid time for the ankle which resulted in a sickening click as it realigned itself. But that’s enough about me and my sufferings .... back to the sheep. 

Now we were waiting on Jenson to give birth. Jenson (ear tag 22) is one of our very first members of our flock when she arrived two years ago with Philippe and Ronald (now residents of the freezer). She was a very small lamb who struggled through her first few days but survived. Now two years later, she was going to give birth to her own lambs. She went into the thoughtful pose at 7am on Wednesday. Feeling like an old hand now, I gathered my stuff including a coat and a mug of hot chocolate and camped out in the polytunnel where I had a good view. Jenson had also watched the videos because she was displaying all the typical signs of nesting and restlessness. Despite my best efforts to move her back towards the pen, she was adamant that the best place to give birth was the other end of the paddock near to the polytunnel. By 10am she was lying down and we had a waterbag and a hoof ... just one hoof ... so recalling my training provided by the East Essex Smallholders Group (thank you guys!!), in I went like an old pro. Found the other hoof, checked they were front hooves, found the head and gently pulled with the contraction - around and down .... job done. Cleared the membrane and brought it around the front. He was a big boy. I went back in to check for more because we thought she was carrying one being much smaller than Mary. Yep, there was more so I left well alone. Seconds later a tiny ewe lamb was out. Again I cleared the membrane and presented it to Jenson. I checked that there was nothing else lamb shaped to come and when she was up on her feet, moved them to the now vacant and cleaned out nursery in the shed. Job done! She had given birth to a big ram lamb named Apollo and a tiny ewe lamb called Artemis. 

 Being totally obsessed with weighing our lambs, we have weighed them all and Mary’s lambs were virtually the same weight at around 5kg each. Jenson had a big ram lamb 5kg and a tiny ewe lamb  4.1kg at 4 days. All are doing fine and gaining weight and both ewes are good Mums with plenty of milk and showing their protective side. So in about 4 days we went from four sheep to eight. We have had a pile of lambs in the paddock and the rest of the flock munching away on grass. We have marked Jenson’s lambs with the same red spot to help us to identify them. 

Phew!