Lambing

Lambing 2009 is off to a quick start. We started on wednesday with a nice set of twin girls. Friday evening another set of twins popped out, a girl and a boy. When i got to the farm early saturday morning, another set of girl/boy twins was waiting on me, and a single girl followed in short order. The ewe with the single spent the day somewhat confused. She was very bonded to her lamb but didn't want to let it nurse - it almost seemed she'd lose track of it and circle to keep it in front of her. We spent the day holding her several times so the lamb could get plenty of colostrum and by late evening both mom and lamb had it figured out. This morning we had what i'm calling "teacup" twins - they're teeny tiny, not even half the size of the other lambs. The ewe was just a yearling and really was being awfully ambitious producing twins rather than one nice single. So far they seem to be hanging in there so we'll keep fingers crossed they make it. They're a girl/boy set as well. Mid-morning we had a labor race. Two ewes went into labor at about the same time. I went ahead and jugged them next to each other and the race was on to see who could produce first, complete with a cheering audience as some of my lesson folks saw their first lambs being born. A set of twins (girl/boy) showed up while the other poor ewe was really struggling to push out a large lamb. She finally managed to shove out a single ram lamb. It really took a lot out of her as she decided that she'd worked quite hard enough thank you, and spent the rest of the day lying propped up comfortably in the jug chewing on hay while her lamb learned to nurse on his knees! Fortunately that was it for the day as all of my lambing pens are full for the moment. It won't surprise me if i have to kick some out in the morning for new lambs though. So, 7 ewes have lambed (6 first timers), producing 8 girls and 4 boys. A good start! I'll get some pictures some time this week.
ETA: #13 showed up this morning (monday), another big ram lamb.