We had another set of twins here at the farm last week. They came during some of the coldest weather of the winter so far…of course. {smile}

But they’re doing just fine. Their momma is a steady, older, ewe that knows her business.

It’s a little ram and a little ewe. (The first set were both rams.) The ewe was born noticeably smaller than the ram and seemed to have some problems right at first.

Every time I opened the back door I could hear the little girl crying her head off. Her momma would walk to the feeding trough and she would just wander around the barn hollering for her, or curl up and cry for her.

Now, it’s normal for a momma to leave them at feeding time about 24 hours after birth (they usually skip a feeding or two right at first to stay with the newborns) but the lambs usually follow her along and stand around in a group crying behind the row of fuzzy-tails at the trough. It’s not really normal for her to wander blankly around the barn while her momma is across the pasture. This also distresses the ewe, who keeps running back and forth instead of eating.

So we jugged them.

A “jug” is a lambing pen. (I have no idea why we use the word “jug”–it’s just a shepherding word and we just do.) We just penned (“jugged”) the lambs and momma up for a few days to keep a closer eye on everyone.

And they’re all doing fine. She still cries a lot more than most lambs we have, but her momma is responding to her and she’s definitely nursing and filling out. So we let them back out into “general population” this past weekend.

I hope she out grows the crying. At a week or two old, baby lambs sound disturbingly like an actually crying baby–except a bit more shrill. In winter, with the leaves and grass all gone, the sound can echo across the farm. {sigh} But otherwise they are doing well.

I’ve got several more momma’s just waiting in the wings to drop their lambs any day now as well.

These ladies are all very experienced momma’s so we don’t expect any problems (although you always have to be prepared!). Last year was kind of a bad lambing year for us, so we’re looking forward to things going smoother this year.

By the way, if you don’t live on a farm, but would love to get a taste of real farm life–not the Old MacDonald farm life–I recommend Kim Lewis’s Days on the Farm books. We have all of them and they are wonderful–and realistic. Even though they’re children’s books, I was captivated by the artwork and how they hit on some unique aspects of farm life with sheep–like shearing and dipping–that I’ve never seen in other books. Floss was the first one we read and still the family favorite, but Emma’s Lamb is a great story about dealing with bottle babies and The Shepherd Boy is a great look at a whole year of farm processes–each season of management. And of course, we’re all quite partial to red tractors around here, so One Summer Day made us all smile.

How are things around your home place looking? Like spring, or more like winter?

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