This is from my archive of last years lambing. We are not lambing this year to manage our overstock from last year. We had too many lambs, and made the decision to keep some as hoggets, instead of lambing this year, and buy in store lambs at 6 weeks from other farmers. Service as normal will resume next year.
It’s is 1 in the morning. I am in the lambing shed. One of the younger ewes has lambed. Toupe I call her, for the disc of white wool on her otherwise black crown. She has had twins. Two boys.
Her lambs are strong. Sturdy. They have fight. Some lambs come into the world thirsty for life. The twins are up and drinking in minutes. Fighting to stand from their first second. She stands, patiently, while they learn to drink. Nickering. Pausing to clean them. Gently. Carefully. She stands for the hour I am there as they learn to drink. Though she is tired. And thirsty. I cut some willow by torchlight in the perfect dark and string it from the rafters for her to browse as a reward.
Cleaned by their mother, and having learned to suckle they drink their fill and set themselves down to sleep. Drowsy, clumsy with milk, full and warm. Bonded well to their mother who, in turn bonded cleanly with them. She set to feeding on her willow. The sweet green an irresistible treat to a tired ewe.
We lamb late for this reason. Our ewes love to browse on tree leaves and will stand to gorge on them, even after a tough birthing. Even when they will eat no other thing. Not grain, or hay, or warm oats or molasses. When all else fails, a branch of young willow will bring a tired ewe to her feet .A standing ewe will let her lambs drink. An occupied ewe will stop cleaning them, long enough to let them learn to drink. Shetalnds, our sheep, are great mothers, but they can be overmuch motherly, knocking their ewes down non stop for two hours in their eagerness to bond with them, stopping them from drinking. Fresh willow will make the ewe stand and attend to herself, so her lambs can learn to feed unfustered with.
Toupe is new enough at this. Her third year with us, her second lambing. I lambed her from her mother. Nursed her though sickness, brought her to health and full strength. Wrapped her shivering lambs in my fleece on the side of a frozen hill. We have a bond. I have her in my eye for my lead ewe. Strong, smart, motherly, she is beginning to take over from the old lead ewe. The other ewes will follow her, she will come to me for a scratch. She can put manners on a Ram enough to make him pliable. She is smart, strong and trusting. She will make of the flock an easily managed group. She will give good strong lambs. She will shape the flock culture to keep them easily handled, and to keep them safe.
I leave her and her midnight black twins. Feeding. Sleeping. Safe in a clean pen. She has warm water, feed, hay, fresh straw. I pick up her lambs before I go. They are warm to the touch, wet nosed. They shake their drowsy heads. They stretch and shiver, a sign of being milk full, and their bellies are round. They radiate heat like hot water bottles. The are well. I will check back at 7. As I leave she nickers to the roused twins and they come to feed. Tiny black tails twirling as they suck.
I am late in the morning. I spent an hour replenishing the lambing supplies. Filling feed buckets. Checking the flock on the hill. No one seems close. But you never know.
I check on Toupe and the twins in the morning. I am eager to see them. Excited. The first lambs of the season. I check the ewe flock quickly, mustering them with the feed bucket and replenishing their hay. Water them. I head to the stable.
In the stable, Toupe is prone. Her twins are sleeping. And there it is. I try to rowse her. But I know she is dead. I am heartbroken. And, shortly after, I am surprised. I had not known she meant that much. I have little time to think, though I am winded and staggered like I have been caught in the heart of me by a sly punch. I steady and set to work. And, though I have not the heart for the work and it makes me sore, there is necessity.
Her lambs are still warm. And wakeful. This is good. She is, terrible to think, not too long gone. I imagine she stood for them, as long as possible. Milk fever it was that took her. Standing would have been hard. I can’t think about that now. We need to warm them, bring them inside, fetch and make bottles for them, and make a hotbox in some sheltered place.
I tear down some old luminescent road signs and two by ones. I build a box for them in the fireplace and lay them down there on piles of newspapers, and old towels wrapped around hot water bottles. They are getting hungry. They roar the house down. We make two bottles of colostrum for them. I go to the stables. Mothers milk is best. Grimly, I milk what I can from their mother. Without as much of her first milk as we can manage, they will not thrive. I mix it in with their powdered milk and we teach them about bottles.
We lead the lambs to the teats with our fingers, they nibble and suck on anything, they fetch our hands mighty pucks, butting our fingers hard with their heads – their way of drawing down their mothers milk – and we lead them to the bottles. It does not take. It is different. They cannot figure it. We spray some milk onto our fingers and try again. Leading the pucking lambs to the bottles again. We spray some milk onto their mouths and as they lick it up we push the bottles in and squeeze gently. It takes a while, for it is a different skill to drawing milk from a mother ewe. They must squeeze the plastic teat with their tongues. It can take time. But they are lusty lambs with a heart in them for life. They stand, persist, and learn. Soon enough we have a lamb each, may partner and I, drinking contentedly and cradled in our laps in the living room. It brings me back. Babes in arms feeding in the living room. I will be up every few hours to feed these boys. For the next few weeks. It will be like having newborns once more.
It does not take long for the cossets to take to me. They will feed from anyone. Any human hand holding a bottle is fair game, and for those unused to their ferocity, they will puck the bottle right out of your hand. But it is for me they cry. They follow me round the farm, roaring, bleating, jumping up, rubbing their just born noses up against me. They grow. Strong. Muscular. Thriving on their formula and regular feeds. In six weeks I miss two feeds. Their roars would bring the farm down around your ears.
I miss their mother. The loss of livestock tears and niggles at you. I am still learning about what I do means to me. More than I know.
