Filing lambs under documents! (With PHOTO)

My previous post tells of the story of the two little orphaned lambs in my lounge room. Before they made it to my lounge, they were in a document box, snuggled up to a heat pack next to my chair.

See photo:

The lamb at the top of the box is a ewe lamb, the lamb at the bottom of the box (with the big white stripe down the head) is a ram.
They have now graduated to a larger box, which, ironically was the box our lamb marking cradle arrived in!

A day turned upside down.............

Today was the first day in about a week or so that the weather was going to play nice.

This means that things we've had to put off recently can now be done, namely drenching the sheep and trimming their feet up as well.

So, by about lunchtime we are all set. Just as I was about to get properly organised, we had a visitor. Not too bad, the visitor is a nice guy and always up for a chat. He's also a wealth of information when it comes to sheep, so I pick his brains on a regular basis.

Whilst we were chatting, my daughter came and told me that the twins (lambs) were on the wrong side of the fence from their mum. Off I go to rescue them, AFTER turning the electric fence off first. These little guys were constantly trying to go through the fence and were being zapped every couple of seconds.

After a quick rescue, it was back to my cuppa whilst we continue chatting.

My daughter then comes to me and says the two lambs I rescued are down the bottom of the paddock and can't get up.

Off I go at a job, only to get about 30 feet away from them to discover that it is two little newborns. They can't get up because they have only just been born. I back away slowly and make my way back to my, now almost cold, cuppa.

Well, that changes the plans a little. No rounding up the ewes today which means no drenching and no feet trimming. It can wait.

After about two hours I notice that the ewe that has just lambed has abandoned her babies. They are calling and she seems oblivious to them. The little girl struggles to her feet and makes her way over to her mum, only to be shunted away.

This is not good.

It was decided that I would catch the lambs, dry them off (they still had sac all over them) and put them in the sunshine. As I was drying them off, they started complaining, so their mum started coming over. A good sign, or so I thought. Instead of licking them, or even talking to them, she proceeded to headbutt them. I stepped in and picked them both up.

We decided to separate her from the mob and put her in a pen with her lambs. Usually this is enough for the ewes to decide that they are going to look after their lambs. Instead of this happening, the ewe set about stepping on, and headbutting her lambs. I scooped them up, brought them inside and gave them some brown sugar in water.

I wanted to give them a boost, but I knew they hadn't had colostrum so I didn't hold out much hope. I relented and gave them a 1/8 mix of lamb milk replacer.

About an hour after that, my son (17yo) came out and we caught the ewe and put the lambs on to drink. They weren't strong enough, so my daughter brought out a jug and I proceeded to milk a very irate ewe. She kicked constantly and almost got her lambs a couple of times.

It's now 8:35PM and the lambs are in a box in my lounge room. They have had about 30 mls of colostrum each, and three feeds of lamb milk replacer (about 100mls) each. Snuggled up to a heat pack, these little guys (guy and girl) seem content and quite happy.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they survive.

They'll get another feed or two tonight, and I'll milk the ewe again in the morning before turning her back out with the mob. If they make two weeks old, I might just give them each a name.

A Marathon day!

Today is the first official day of the school holidays here, and we've already been flat out.

Today was the day to drench all of the ewes, and to bring the older lambs (and ram) up into a pen (mainly to keep them out of the way lol).

The job fell to Jock to bring the lambs and ram up first. The ram has been worked many times, but this was only the second time for the lambs. Obviously the telling off they got from Jock yesterday carried some weight because they all stayed together today. He had the job done within about 5 minutes of starting, which is a record.

Next we had to bring the ewes and lambs up. That involved fetching them out of a paddock, pushing them through two more and into a small paddock that has the yard. Then get them all into the yard. Again, Jock did this beautifully. He pushed steadily and got the job done.

The best part is, the work I had done with him about 2 months ago on "driving" has paid off, because today he was walking about 6 feet ahead of me, and about 15 feet to my left pushing the sheep into the yards, whilst I got ready with the panel to close in behind them. It was done perfectly!

Jock is still rather too enthusiastic when it comes to the sheep, and gets in too close, however he does get the job done.

I am going to have to work on a few things with him though. First he needs to stop trying to bolt off around the sheep when we first get into the paddock. I want him to wait until I am ready, so that's step one.

Number 2 is, when the training pen is put back up, I'm going to spend quite a bit of time getting Jock to widen out. He's coming in really close now and it's no good for working the lambs, so he HAS to back off.

That'll be worked on over time in the Spring and Summer, which is still a couple of months away!

So, thanks Jock for your help today, and to my husband and kids for their help as well. The best part is (I think), is we get to do it all again in a weeks time! Hopefully next time I'll be able to supply photo's.