When I was out walking the dogs past the lamb pasture Wednesday morning, I thought I saw a ewe laying down back in the corner in a sheep hut. So we kept an eye on her throughout the morning chores and school routine.
Sure enough, she was in labor. By the time I left for work, she had a healthy set of twins on the ground.
They were up, walking around and nursing. I sneaked in for a closer look, but she started stomping her foot at me, so I didn’t go to close. We don’t like to interfere with the momma-newborn bonding if there’s no reason to. She’s their best bet for a healthy life, so we try to leave it to her if she knows what she’s doing. I saw the lambs both up nursing and laying back down, so I knew they were ok.
We’ll get an up-close look at them this evening when we go out to dock their tails. As long as we don’t see any signs of problems, we don’t put hands on until 24-48 hours after they are born. Then we catch them, dock their tails, and check them over. That’s the kiddos favorite part! {smile}
Meanwhile, things are going pretty smoothly this year for us. We’ve got two ewes left to lamb and so far no complications, although we did have one stillborn.
As I’ve said before, we believe that baby sheep are best raised by momma sheep. You’ll find some details (and really cute baby pictures!) about what lambing looks (the good and the bad) in our Lambing Help Series. And if you have any questions, please feel free to comment or hop over to our Facebook page and send us a message–we’re not experts, but we’re glad to share our experiences!