The Cade

Pronounced Cadee - orphan lamb in Orcadian.

so our 2nd set of twins came along a day or so early, at about 6am.
And after 6 hours one of them seems not to have fed (much) , so we thought we had better investigate.
So to see what was happening  we brought them inside.Its actually  much easier coralling a ewe that has just given birth - pick up the lamb and the mother usually follows.

And then the lamb (its a she) was a bit cold so needed warming up and then  to be fed as its mother has problems feeding 2.

 but once that has happened  going  back outside  with the mother and other twin is likely just to lead to a repeat tomorrow, we need to provide alternative accommodation for her

Scanning 2020

its wet , horrible and muddy but needs must.  postponed from yesterday because of the storm .

So firstyl get your sheep all in a pen .

Well, except for one , who didnt want to co-operate and is its a lamb, hasnt been tupped and so doenst need scanning.

And then some suitable attired helpers.  Thanks to Karen and Laura for coming along

And then get the sheep penned, excluding the lambs

And then make a race for  leading the sheep to the scanner

And get aforesaid sheep into the race

Gaurded by Laura

 And then encourage the sheep to go into the van and be scanned

And the result

• 1 isnt pregnant 
• 11 have single lambs 
• 7 have twins  

So a busy May is coming 

And finally

And the last expecting ewe gave birth in the early hours of the morning.
All well, it seemed and the lamb had been licked dry and was up and active and trying to feed

The emphasis on 'trying'. Whenever the lamb attempted to feed, the lamb.

And the plan is to go and hold the ewe and  latch on the lamb so that it can feed.
And do that every 3 hours or so, until they both get the hang of what is supposed to happen

Junior not helping

the first of the ewes due yesterday delivered a singleton in the early afternoon. The one expecting twins was in early labour in the afternoon

At 915 in the evening one lamb had appeared

And she expecting twins .

And 45 minutes later the 2nd one appeared

And the usual behaviour is that the mother will lick the newborn dry,whilst it attempts to stand  and then feed .

But for this one the first twin  go in the way trying to feed, as the ewe was sorting out the second one.

But all was well in the end, with 2 active , standing, feeding lambs

And we need names for this pair.

I thought of halibut and horseradish .

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.

caught in the act

One of the ewes decided to give birth  in the field with a clear view outside a window  - so I managed to capture bits of the labour and delivery.

20.56  After the waters have gone,a  lots of wandering back and forth,  and finding a patch of grass to lie down on 

21.11    Starting to contract  as labour progresses 

21.25   The actual birth bit can be rapid in this breed of sheep - the lambs tend to be small .

Once born, the ewe licks the lamb and it starts to move 

 21.25 The lamb tries to get up and feed 

21.35 And getting up and trying to find the udder to feed. 

And this is the first of twins, but its to dark to  get pictures  - and going in a  this stage with torcjes and lights would just disturb the ewe. 

So the plan is to go out at first light and see what's what

May the 4th be with you

As its May the 4th , its the unofficial Star Wars day. And the quote comes from Star Wars 

So out May 4th started at 10.13 am as the waters  broke

followed a couple of hours later by  a head

And then a lamb . Which the mother will lick , to dry it and stimulate it  and break the umbilicial cord

And then it tries to stand

And once its got the hang of that , tries to find the udder and feed

And once the lamb has got the hang of things, the mother will eat the placenta once its delivered

 And welcome , Han Solo !

And its started

On scans and dates , due from the 4th May, but this morning one of the first-time ewes separated herself from the rest and restlessly looked for somewhere to lie down.
We had been warned from neighbours that sheep seem to be lambing earlier that expected dates this year -probably something to do with the  mild spring and there being ample grass , leading to large lambs. And large lambs  can precipitate things as they can  come to term .

 Between seeing the restlesness and 90 minutes later,  events had progressed

And a few hours later the  lamb ( male, we think) has started to venture out and explore.

Scanning

Are the ewes pregnant ? .Theyve all been tupped but .  We need a scanner to  confirm
So on saturday we had

1. Weather.

50mph horizontal hail. But that's just a mild spring breeze.


2. Some sheep 

3. A scanner 

Bruce arrived

4 Some helpers 

 5. Some action 

And the result is that we are expecting 7 twins and 12 singletons,  commencing at the start of May.
Unless its all a bit early, then its the end of April.

Lambing  - lots of hanging around for stuff to happen.  And then it happens and a biot more hanging around . Or action . or something

one down , 14 to go .

Lambing is due to start today .
And , just on cue, the first one (Cara)  wasnt interested in beet nuts this morning , and then took herself off to a corner of the field .

9.18 am 

And then , with a lot of getting up and lying down, things started to happen

9.19 am membranes rupture 

things start to  appear

9.39 am . All a a bit slow compared to normal lambing 

9.50 am Head and feet appear 

9.54 am all the rest of the lamb slides out. 

9.55 am job done 

And some of  the others  , due later in the week, were  looking on . No idea why . We've not seen this before .


But the complication was that the other ewe due today took a real interest and started licking the new lamb, along with the mother.

Feeding is the essential part of the bonding process, and the lamb was to going  to the wrong ewe  would cause problems further down the line .  So we had to go and herd the intruder away , allowing the lamb to feed from its mother .

 End result - lamb and its mother , both happy . 

And the intruder gave birth, uneventfully over about 20 minutes , at about 530 pm 

So its 2 down , 13 to go.