Four Lane Highway to Crazytown

You'd think that lambing season would be the most bloggable time of the year, and indeed it IS - but I'm just not getting that done.  Since the 18th we have 102 lambs from 51 ewes.  Nine sets of triplets including a set this morning.  Vast majority twins with maybe 8 singles.  Had to do a few corrections on lambs coming butt-first, broadside or with various legs in the wrong position.  A few ewes needed post-partum meds for feeling crummy, and I'm supplementing about 10 lambs who are from triplets (somebody always gets shoved aside and goes hungry) and a couple whose mom isn't milking on one side so she can't support twins.

For every lambing the procedure is to get mom and lambs into a small pen of their own (we had 18 going at one time), strip milk from both teats on mom to be sure she has some, weigh each lamb and dip the navel with iodine, and make sure they nurse. Lambs receive an injection of BoSe (supplemental selenium) within 24 hours because we are so deficient here.  After 2 days of doing well the lambs are ear tagged and tail banded and mom has her feet trimmed before being released into a mixing pen.  Mixing pens hold 9 to 10 ewes and lambs. 

Chore time is controlled chaos as ever individual pen needs a ration of grain, clean water and hay, the mixing pens need the same, the ewes who haven't lambed yet also get theirs, and the group of yearlings and geriatrics who weren't bred also need feeding.  Throw in the occasional ewe who wants to lamb during feeding time, or the new mom feeling crummy who needs meds, the new lambs who just don't look perky and need to be checked over.........and we are practically living in the barn.

But... we know we're gaining since we only have 20-something ewes left to go.  One year everyone lambed in the space of 18 days, so it *could* happen. 

Back to the barn to see what's happening!