Friday, January 30, 2009

More lambs...

I couldn't resist sharing these picture, which I took yesterday morning. I went down to the farm late Wednesday night because there were a couple ewes having trouble lambing. Since I don't have class until Thursday afternoon, I went down to help. The next morning, I think we had 10 new lambs - unfortunately two of them died.
Anyway, I thought I would share a couple more pictures of our lambs to lighten my mood. I just like this picture of two of the lambs with their mothers. The ewe lamb on the left is only 2 weeks old - she's huge!
I had to share the photo of this little family because there is a story behind the birth of these two lambs. Shauna called me a little over a week ago trying to find out what to do because the ewe was lambing and had three legs and a head out. I talked her through the process of pushing the two back legs back in, then pulling the head and front leg out. It turned out that the little brown ewe lamb was not coming out fast enough for her bigger brother, so he passed her in the birth canal and was born first. She was 8 pounds at birth. He was a whopping twelve! So, there you have a success story.I just thought this last picture was fun. This lamb was playing with the cat - needless to say, the cat was not amused.
Otherwise, it has been a good week. The last couple days have been warm - a whole 40 degrees today! I walked home without a jacket, which was novel. I had two exams today and will have one more on Monday. Lamb watch starts next week for the sheep class I am a TA for, so I will be on call some nights. It can be exhausting but I sure enjoyed all the experiences I had last year. I saw a lot that I probably would never have had the opportunity to experience otherwise.
I have been doing a little bit of training with Tika. We can't do a lot with the snow, but she is enjoying the mental exercises.

1 comment:

GeeRome said...

I love sheep! I used to help with lambing at the campus farm as an undergrad. It was my favorite time of year. Always signed up for the late night/early morning shifts to maximize my chances of lamb-contact! haha