Two F1 ram lambs
Last night at 11:00, I could tell that Lumi's lambs would not wait much longer to be born. Because lambs are not usually born at night, the general rule if that if you don't want lambs in the middle of the night, you should check on them at 11 PM and then check on them again first thing in the morning. The hope being that the ewes will go to sleep, stay calm and it you don't keep stirring them up, nothing will happen.
But by 11:00, Lumi wasn't lying down being uncomfortable anymore. I wasn't even sure she could lie down anymore! She wasn't eating anymore. She was just standing still looking like she was waiting for something. That made me wonder if she was starting to have some small contractions that the rest of us couldn't detect. I was worried that given her huge size, she might have a whole load of lambs and need some help. Most Finn lambs are born quite easily since they are born small. This means that even if you get a breach or odd presentation, they are born just fine anyway. But Lumi's pattern has been that her lambs are born quickly and she doesn't have time to get the first one totally licked clean and dry before the next one is born. So a little human help getting them dried, warm and fed is good so they don't become hypothermic. (In case you were wondering, Wisconsin can still be pretty cold in early April especially at night.)
So our plan was that I would set my alarm clock to go out and check her at 2 AM and then my husband, Upal, would go out at 4 AM. When I went out at 2 AM, she was standing up, but then all the ewes in the "maternity pen" were standing up looking at me like, "Why are you bothering us?" She didn't even have that look of urgency anymore, so I started thinking that I might have been dreaming that the night before. So I went back to the house and despite my efforts to sneak back into bed, Upal woke up. We decided that he would go out and check Lumi at 5 AM instead.
So when he went out at 5:00, I had just fallen back asleep when he came back in the house and said, "There's something starting to come out." I ask him if he thought it was the water bag or the lamb and he wasn't sure. So I got "suited up" in the Walls coveralls that I call my "farm onesie". When we got back out to the barn (which was 24 F or -4 C inside), the head and one foot were already out, but the other foot was not. And... the head was BIG. This was a big lamb and was not just going to come squirting out if it was in the wrong position. (Lambs should be born in the "superman position" with front legs completely outstretched alongside their head.) I put on an shoulder length OB glove and smeared a lot of Superlube on it. Then I reached in to look for the other foot. I could see that it was just an "elbow lock" where only the bottom part of the front leg is bent back, but fortunately the shoulder and upper part of the leg were in the right position. With a small Finn lamb, this probably wouldn't even matter, but did I mention that this lamb's head looked BIG?
In this case, the usual recommendation is actually to push the lamb back inside the ewe a bit to give you room to maneuver the front leg back the right way. Lumi was pushing this big lamb out with all her might. So neither of us were making any progress other than giving me a severe cramp in my hand. Since now she was trying to deliver a big lamb and my hand too. (I feel luck to have long skinny fingers in this particular circumstance, though it makes it almost impossible to buy gloves that fit.) I looked back in one of my sheep handouts from the Sheep Short Course I took several years ago and it suggested putting the ewe over a clean bale of straw so that the ewe's rear was higher than her head to let gravity assist with sucking the lamb back inside. Lumi was pretty adament about not getting up, so Upal just lifted her rear (holding onto her back legs) and I shoved the bale under her butt. Although the lamb did not appear to go back in at all, somehow this change of position shifted the lamb around and he came out pretty easily.
He was born at 5:30 AM and weighed 9 pounds (4.08 kg) at birth. He is a white lamb with a lot of pheomelanin pigment. This causes the hair on the sheep (but not the wool) to be a reddish brown. So it appears on the ears, legs, and hair fibers that are mixed in with the wool at birth, giving the sheep sort of a "pink" appearance. Usually any color in the wool disappears by the time the lamb is 6 months old, though some retain in it in the areas with hair such as their legs. Nine pounds ties our farm record for the largest lamb born here. We have had two other 9 pounders, but they were both singles and this guy is a twin!
We are getting such big lambs this year! I think it is the smaller litter size since these first litters are from the AI. These ewes have had multiple lambs before and have lots of room inside for babies. (Lumi has had quads twice before.) So these few lambs have a whole lot of room inside the ewe to grow really big!
Lumi took a little break for an hour. Cleaned her lamb, ate some hay and seemed very casual about the whole event. Remarkably, this lamb was not yellow (from meconium) at all, so I don't think Lumi was straining much before we got out there and maybe he was just momentarily stuck because of the elbow position. Then at 6:30 AM another lamb was born very quickly. He is much smaller lamb at 6 pounds 6 oz (2.89 kg) but was very active and vigorous from the very start. I am pretty much certain that he is grey. His wool appears solid black but he has a big wide white blaze on his face and speckled ears which are quite adorable. He has the bluish pink tongue that Helena in Finland has told me about and I can see some grey wool starting to come in under his front legs in his "armpit" area.
Here they are at 5 and 6 hours of age:
The blood on their ears and coats is not their blood. The were very insistent on walking under Lumi to nurse while she was delivering the afterbirth so they got messy. I will change their coats later today, but they were all snug and cute. I felt under them and their bellies felt full so they are getting up and nursing while I am in the house.
Mom and babies.
And here is Helmi's and her little ewe lamb at 48 hours old:
See how Helmi's baby is really pink inside her ears and Lumi's lamb is really dark inside his ears? That is the pheomelanin pigment.
Annika is the last ewe of this group to lamb. (These 3 are the one in which the AI "took".) Her udder is huge, but she was gobbling down hay today and didn't look like she was even thinking about having lambs. So I am guessing maybe tomorrow??? BTW, it is a sunny but windy 50 F (10 C) outside this afternoon and was 60 F (15 C) so I was able to open some windows up high and away from the lambs to air things out in the barn.
So, who is a "keeper" and who is for sale? I am keeping Helmi's ewe lamb for sure. I will have to decide about the ram lambs after I see what Annika has. (Annika and Lumi are mother and daughter and were bred to the same ram.) I will probably keep all the ram lambs for a while and grow them out to see how they are turning out. I will keep at least one for sure.
I will have plenty of lambs for sale from my other 3 ewes: Katja, Mara and Pilvi who are due later this month. See my farm website for details on these 2008 lambs.
But by 11:00, Lumi wasn't lying down being uncomfortable anymore. I wasn't even sure she could lie down anymore! She wasn't eating anymore. She was just standing still looking like she was waiting for something. That made me wonder if she was starting to have some small contractions that the rest of us couldn't detect. I was worried that given her huge size, she might have a whole load of lambs and need some help. Most Finn lambs are born quite easily since they are born small. This means that even if you get a breach or odd presentation, they are born just fine anyway. But Lumi's pattern has been that her lambs are born quickly and she doesn't have time to get the first one totally licked clean and dry before the next one is born. So a little human help getting them dried, warm and fed is good so they don't become hypothermic. (In case you were wondering, Wisconsin can still be pretty cold in early April especially at night.)
So our plan was that I would set my alarm clock to go out and check her at 2 AM and then my husband, Upal, would go out at 4 AM. When I went out at 2 AM, she was standing up, but then all the ewes in the "maternity pen" were standing up looking at me like, "Why are you bothering us?" She didn't even have that look of urgency anymore, so I started thinking that I might have been dreaming that the night before. So I went back to the house and despite my efforts to sneak back into bed, Upal woke up. We decided that he would go out and check Lumi at 5 AM instead.
So when he went out at 5:00, I had just fallen back asleep when he came back in the house and said, "There's something starting to come out." I ask him if he thought it was the water bag or the lamb and he wasn't sure. So I got "suited up" in the Walls coveralls that I call my "farm onesie". When we got back out to the barn (which was 24 F or -4 C inside), the head and one foot were already out, but the other foot was not. And... the head was BIG. This was a big lamb and was not just going to come squirting out if it was in the wrong position. (Lambs should be born in the "superman position" with front legs completely outstretched alongside their head.) I put on an shoulder length OB glove and smeared a lot of Superlube on it. Then I reached in to look for the other foot. I could see that it was just an "elbow lock" where only the bottom part of the front leg is bent back, but fortunately the shoulder and upper part of the leg were in the right position. With a small Finn lamb, this probably wouldn't even matter, but did I mention that this lamb's head looked BIG?
In this case, the usual recommendation is actually to push the lamb back inside the ewe a bit to give you room to maneuver the front leg back the right way. Lumi was pushing this big lamb out with all her might. So neither of us were making any progress other than giving me a severe cramp in my hand. Since now she was trying to deliver a big lamb and my hand too. (I feel luck to have long skinny fingers in this particular circumstance, though it makes it almost impossible to buy gloves that fit.) I looked back in one of my sheep handouts from the Sheep Short Course I took several years ago and it suggested putting the ewe over a clean bale of straw so that the ewe's rear was higher than her head to let gravity assist with sucking the lamb back inside. Lumi was pretty adament about not getting up, so Upal just lifted her rear (holding onto her back legs) and I shoved the bale under her butt. Although the lamb did not appear to go back in at all, somehow this change of position shifted the lamb around and he came out pretty easily.
He was born at 5:30 AM and weighed 9 pounds (4.08 kg) at birth. He is a white lamb with a lot of pheomelanin pigment. This causes the hair on the sheep (but not the wool) to be a reddish brown. So it appears on the ears, legs, and hair fibers that are mixed in with the wool at birth, giving the sheep sort of a "pink" appearance. Usually any color in the wool disappears by the time the lamb is 6 months old, though some retain in it in the areas with hair such as their legs. Nine pounds ties our farm record for the largest lamb born here. We have had two other 9 pounders, but they were both singles and this guy is a twin!
We are getting such big lambs this year! I think it is the smaller litter size since these first litters are from the AI. These ewes have had multiple lambs before and have lots of room inside for babies. (Lumi has had quads twice before.) So these few lambs have a whole lot of room inside the ewe to grow really big!
Lumi took a little break for an hour. Cleaned her lamb, ate some hay and seemed very casual about the whole event. Remarkably, this lamb was not yellow (from meconium) at all, so I don't think Lumi was straining much before we got out there and maybe he was just momentarily stuck because of the elbow position. Then at 6:30 AM another lamb was born very quickly. He is much smaller lamb at 6 pounds 6 oz (2.89 kg) but was very active and vigorous from the very start. I am pretty much certain that he is grey. His wool appears solid black but he has a big wide white blaze on his face and speckled ears which are quite adorable. He has the bluish pink tongue that Helena in Finland has told me about and I can see some grey wool starting to come in under his front legs in his "armpit" area.
Here they are at 5 and 6 hours of age:
The blood on their ears and coats is not their blood. The were very insistent on walking under Lumi to nurse while she was delivering the afterbirth so they got messy. I will change their coats later today, but they were all snug and cute. I felt under them and their bellies felt full so they are getting up and nursing while I am in the house.
Mom and babies.
And here is Helmi's and her little ewe lamb at 48 hours old:
See how Helmi's baby is really pink inside her ears and Lumi's lamb is really dark inside his ears? That is the pheomelanin pigment.
Annika is the last ewe of this group to lamb. (These 3 are the one in which the AI "took".) Her udder is huge, but she was gobbling down hay today and didn't look like she was even thinking about having lambs. So I am guessing maybe tomorrow??? BTW, it is a sunny but windy 50 F (10 C) outside this afternoon and was 60 F (15 C) so I was able to open some windows up high and away from the lambs to air things out in the barn.
So, who is a "keeper" and who is for sale? I am keeping Helmi's ewe lamb for sure. I will have to decide about the ram lambs after I see what Annika has. (Annika and Lumi are mother and daughter and were bred to the same ram.) I will probably keep all the ram lambs for a while and grow them out to see how they are turning out. I will keep at least one for sure.
I will have plenty of lambs for sale from my other 3 ewes: Katja, Mara and Pilvi who are due later this month. See my farm website for details on these 2008 lambs.
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