first loss

in the evening yesterday one of the ewes looked  as if she was going into labour. The slightly unusual thing was that thre wasnt the usual clear fluid and bag of membranes that appeared first - it was more bloody than we have come to expect.
But by this morning there were no lambs  and she was seemingly back to normal, grazing. Except for further loss of fluid.
So we got the vet to come and see what's what.
Examinstiaon of the ewe reveled an open cervix and with the help of a lambing rope  (a bit like this )  a lamb was delivered. And there was us all thinking it would be a stillbirh - and it wriggled and gasped and after a couple of minutes was breathing and being licked by its mother.

So that was that - we thought. The scan had initially shown 2 lambs, but   pregnacnise can fail to progress and so we thought we'd ended up with one . But going out a coule of hours later we were surprised 

On closer inspection

So we think that this was the 2nd twin. And the cause of the abnormal labour.
I wonder if there has  been a placental abruption and the lamb and placenta have subsequently died.

The ewe is continuing to pass the placenta - which is  normal -  but instead of being a red colour , its dirty brown colour , probably due to  the lack of blood supply leading to the death of  the tissue.