Life in a small town.

Notes from the lambing shed. About a 2 weeks ago.

PEN 1. Lambed last night. Both doing well, only brought in as a precaution, the lamb was smallish and it was cold.

PEN 2. Fostering on. Ewe lost its own lamb to Watery Mouth (E-coli infection) within hours of its birth, in spite of precautionary antibiotic. Foster lamb was a twin with a thin mum, who would struggle to raise two. Need another day or so inside to accept each other. The ewe is in a head yoke so she doesn't batter the lamb. This is the 3rd death from watery mouth this year.

PEN 3. First time mum ( shearling) who did not know what to do. Had to plug the lamb in to the teat a few times manually yesterday, but both have got the hang of it now. Can go back out today.

PEN 4. Curlylamb. Named by the Grand daughter. Her mother had mastitis and very little milk. Tried for 3 weeks to see if she could rear Curly herself – nothing doing – and as Curley was by then too old to foster on, she is now an official Pet Lamb. This means she will spend the rest of her life as a nuisance, driving me mad.

PEN 5. A difficult birth, posterior presentation as its called , or “ f****** backwards” in the local vernacular. In these situations you must abandon all subtleties and pull as hard as you can to get the lamb out before it suffocates. Because the head has not pushed against the cervix and helped it to dilate, it is often tight, resulting in a very sore ewe. Needs a few days rest and a course of antibiotics.

PEN 6. Prolapse. The whole vaginal passage turns inside out, it appears like a large red grape fruit under the sheep's tail. It looks worse than it is, you just shove it all back in and put in a couple of stitches to keep it there. Remember to cut stitches before she lambs.

PEN 7. Very frustrating, a mother that is rejecting its own lamb. Its a problem. When you assist a ewe at lambing, you can break the bond it is developing between itself and its unborn lamb. But if you don't assist, the lamb can wind up dead. What do you do? I give each ewe a couple of hours serious pushing and if nothing has appeared by then - catch it and lamb it. A few hours in a pen together usually has them “mothering up”again. If not, I tie Nelly the sheep dog in the pen next door to stimulate the mother's protective instincts.

PEN 8. Nelly the sheep dog. There,s nothing she likes better than to stare menacingly at a sheep for half a day.

PEN 9. A set of uneven twins. One of which will be my next foster lamb. If one twin is bigger than the other it monopolises the milk supply and the motherly love. It gets bigger, while the smaller one remains at best stunted – its natures way, so I usually take one lamb off and foster it on after the next lambing tragedy .

PEN 10. A shearling (first timer) on with lambing. As a rule things take twice as long with shearlings, and they often require a bit of help, so if I see one in even the earliest stages of lambing I bring it in and watch it closely. Nothing showing yet.

PEN 11. Set of nice twins, ready to go back out.

PEN 12. A lamb with a huge swollen head and a v tired mum. We call them Monster lambs, they are simply too big and get stuck with just the head showing. Slow strangulation ensues and the head swells, I've seen them twice their normal size. They are the reason we check the ewes every 4 hours or so, they need pulling out asap. The lambs tongue is also swollen so it can't suckle very well until the swelling goes down. This is important as a new born lamb needs its colostrum (first milk) within 4 hours of birth - before its gut wall becomes impervious to the antibodies passed to it in that milk. Will need to milk the mum and feed the lamb with a stomach tube next job.