Notes from Windward: #59

Lambing Time

Heather and Dolly
check out Dolly's new lamb

It is lambing time. Lambing is a time when sheep and shepherd are most closely associated. Ewes and people form a close bond at lambing time. I have enjoyed seeing this bond first hand.

Walt and Joyce will be leaving for a little over a week to go to Arizona in February. And I have been learning the routine so I can fill in while they are gone. At this point we have nine new lambs and four sheep still expecting. All of the birthings but one occured early in the morning with no one around and thankfully they all survived.

Hershey on the other hand had her twin girls at two in the afternoon. Walt came to my place to let me know that Hershey had a new lamb and it appeared she was going to have another. Not long after I arrived she did have another one. She had a small white lamb peppered with flecks of black and an adorable solid black little girl. I went into the pen to clear her teats of any blockages and was amazed at how receptive she was to my being there. She is usually skittish and wouldn't tolerate me touching her any longer than it took for her to walk off. Not only did she let me handle her lambs but she truly understood I was there to help get her lambs on the teats to nurse. She let me pet her and talk soothingly to her as I was assisting. She also let me milk her of some of her collostrum which I then tubed the lambs with.

These girls are the first sign that Rodman (our new young ram) is doing his job. We had seperated Rodman and Lambie this year and distributed the ewes between them. We put the white ewes with Lambie and the natural colored ones with Rodman. We would have liked to have had more twins but only had three sets out of six birthings. Hopefully we will have more twins with the four remaining ewes.

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