Last week, I brought home three orphan lambs to bottle feed, and this week I was expecting the sheep I brought home last month to begin having babies of their own.
My old flock is still at the old place, and won’t start welcoming babies until May. We’ve been keeping the new little flock at our barn in town as a kind of quarantine (safety first!) but also because they were supposed to start lambing April 11. Since weather can shift from balmy to blizzard-like in a matter of hours this time of year, keeping them close seemed like a good idea during their lambing period.
I started checking the little flock in earnest April 7, since sheep, like people, can go into labor early. Luckily, the weather was windy but extremely mild. The previous week’s snow and sleet were a distant memory, though the evidence of that precipitation was appearing all around us in the form of juicy grass and fat tree buds.
The early morning and late night flock checks and bottle feedings were sheer pleasure: the newly returned birds singing me awake and to bed, the flock peaceful, the bum lambs always jubilant at my arrival with warm bottles.
At least, they were peaceful until one of the kids came down with a nasty virus, and the other followed right behind. After all the illnesses we’ve been through in the last year, you’d think we’d have built up enough immunity to be nearly invincible, but I guess that’s not the way it works.
Quite suddenly, in addition to the late night and early morning chores, there were multiple middle-of-the-night wakings to administer a spoonful of warm honey tea for a coughing fit that wouldn’t stop, or Tylenol for a spiking fever.
Consequently, checking the flock every few hours began to feel a little less joyous. It didn’t help that despite several of my ewes lumbering around like they were minutes away from labor, all that checking was for naught. Every time I headed to the barn filled with anticipation, I instead found the flock chewing their cuds, relaxing, their giant bellies blooming awkwardly above their thin, short legs.
April 11 came and went. So did April 12. By the morning of April 13, beyond exhausted from my triple shifts of flock, lamb and human childcare, I was praying for a lamb just so I could get a morale boost, and I was also beginning to wonder, was it possible my ewes might be faking their pregnancies?
I did my last check of the night on April 13, joking to myself that I should probably give up hope of anyone ever actually going into labor. Another rough night of coughing ensued, and dawn found me penned in on both sides by the kids, who had both found their way to my bed. Despite it being a large bed, the three of us were corralled together precipitously on the edge, and I was pretty sure if I moved much we’d all roll off.
I painstakingly pulled an arm from under one sleeping head, reaching to check the time on my cell phone without waking anyone up. It was after 7 a.m., much later than I should have been sleeping, but there was also a text message from my husband, who had snuck out sometime earlier. It was, of course, a picture of one of ewe dutifully nuzzling a still slightly sticky newborn lamb.
This first birth opened the floodgates. By the next morning, two more sets of twins were tumbling around behind their mothers. Since there are only nine ewes in the little flock, this means I am already a third of the way done. Counting the bottle lambs, it also means we’ve got almost as many lambs as ewes now, and if you think that’s a delight to behold, you are very right.
I am also happy to report that though I have gotten no additional sleep, the morale boost was indeed successful. There really is nothing in the world sweeter than healthy new babies, bright new grass and the knowledge that there is more to come!
Too bad they get eaten…