Its 5 am. I should not be awake or if I am awake I should be doing one of any number of things other than this, but hey I only have one life. I have come to realize a few things and thought I should memorialize them for the few interested folks out there. So I'm writing a blog... Obviously.
Yesterday was quite interesting. We arrived back home to find on of the ewe's laying by the front gate looking dead. I couldn't figure out what I was seeing at first but as I moved closer I realized I was looking at her butt end and something extra was there behind it, something... slimy. I asked Jason (meet my boyfriend and long time baby daddy) to help me get the ewe up. She had just delivered something. We quickly pulled her to her feet and she walked off seeming rather unconcerned. I began to review the sack which had been partially under her rump. Feeling a bit grossed out and sad that there were two lambs, neither of which I imagined to be alive as they were both totally in the sack that had been their home for the last few months, I snapped to attention when I sensed a small chest movement from one of the small animals. I dove in with abandon completely forgetting to be grossed out. As I pulled the mucky stuff off the small bodies they sprung to life. Jason grabbed the legs of one lamb and I grabbed the other. We held them upside down for a bit and drug them gently by the legs to try to get the fluids out. I'm way to nervous to do the circular swinging thing that really is supposed to clear out the lungs. So we put them down and got some towels to dry them off. Not something I would normally advise however these lambs have a particularly dumb mother so I wasn't worrying about her not imprinting on them. She was long gone and couldn't have cared less about the babies. Normally I don't worry too much about new lambs. I mean I like them and I want them to live but I'm not brought to tears if they don't make it. These lambs were different. My hormones still raging from the birth of my now four month old. I was determined that these two would live. I used Romi's (My four month old baby girl) nasal suction thing to get the last remnants of mucus out of the lambs noses and they were coming to life. I couldn't believe it. The mom never did come around after a couple hours we caught her and forced her to let them nurse. I'm afraid these are bottle babies. They lived though which is still amazing to me. They made it through the night. I'm sure my mom went out and fed them at least once. We had to make colostrum just to feed them something since the ewe didn't seem to be producing milk yet. There was lots of gross goo and anxiety but in the end it all turned out ok, that is so far at least. I can see them out there with their surrogate mommy in the front yard. The inept ewe's mother decided that she wanted them and so now they are charges of their loving grandmother.
That was my big entrance into the blogging world. I hope you enjoyed it and there will be more to come although not all of it will be sheep related or so messy.
