Lambing Report

 What you should know:

1. I am traumatised.
2. I might always be a softie. 

We're almost, almost at the end of lambing. (I say 'we' but I've really had very little to do with it all.)

The extent of my involvement

There is one ewe left to lamb. She's really stringing it out, enjoying the spa treatment of the lambing shed, that includes daily feeding and watering and regular staring, swearing and shaking fists from anyone named Fisher. 

"I'm just enjoying some me time"

She's expecting a single lamb. This would have been handy at the start of the week as there were a couple of unexpected lambs. Sometimes at the tail end of lambing there are triplets when twins were expected as they were too small to be seen during scanning (see this blog post for a bit more about scanning). 

I've mentioned in previous blogs that twins tend to fare better than triplets but haven't gone into detail. Mainly because it's quite hard to explain. Let's start with the easy bit. 

1. Ewes have two teats so twins always have a ready supply of milk. 
2. Often the third triplet is quite small so has trouble muscling in on the other two. 
3. This is where 'twinning on' comes in. 

Twinning on involves persuading a ewe with a single lamb that she had a second lamb that she just hadn't noticed. It can be done in a number of ways and to varying degrees of success. 

• The lamb is put in beside her in her pen and everyone just crosses their fingers. 
• The lamb is covered in her afterbirth (or 'cleaning' as I learned it was called the other day) so that it smells like her own lamb and she licks it clean.

Those of a sensitive disposition, look away now. 

• The lamb is covered in the skin and fleece of her dead lamb like a little chichi jacket and the ewe is none the wiser. 

You can come back now.

Thankfully here, one of the first two ways tends to be used as I'm not sure I could handle the third. 

"Me? Been here all the time."

All this reduces the likelihood of having pet lambs that have to be bottle fed and kept close by before they're strong enough to go out into the field unaccompanied. 

There are no pet lambs here this year. They've either been twinned on, twinned themselves on by wandering into a neighbouring pen and pretending they were there all along or not quite made it. And other ewes have kept all three lambs as they had enough milk to make all of the triplets strong. 

Hearty twins

I'm too traumatised to tell you the story of the lamb that went to another farm the other night to be twinned on elsewhere. Maybe next year when I've toughened up a bit after another orbit round the sun. It seems unlikely, though, doesn't it. 

Not my forte

Things you should know:
1. Ivie suffers from triskaidekaphobia. 
2. It's not as painful as it sounds. 

Last weekend, it felt like Spring was in the air for many of us. The sun shone, thermals were (prematurely) shed and daffodils were starting to make an appearance. 

It was also time to make a start on a job that I'd been slightly procrastinating about. Not because I'm lazy but because I lack the precision gene. Add to that shaky hands passed down from my Dad and it's safe to say that doing things neatly is not my forte. 

I'm much more aligned to the F*** it, it'll do school of thought or as Ivie and I frequently observe, 'it's better than it was'. This is a very adaptable phrase that is useful for many household situations. 

• Washed the kitchen floor but the puppy has already scattered her food over it? It's better than it was. 
• Cleaned the car but couldn't quite reach the top of the roof? It's better than it was. 
• Made the bed but it's not quite hotel standard? It's better than it was. 

I'm not like this with everything, though; just practical tasks. Once at my old house, my brother cut the hedge and suggested (strongly) that I sweep up the debris. I got bored quite quickly and started kicking bits back under the hedge where they couldn't be seen. 

I didn't notice I'd been noticed until my brother yelled, "Pretend it's a spreadsheet!". It's a source of great disappointment that those closest to me do not share my ability to see the beauty in a neat, well-designed spreadsheet. But I digress. 

Back to the job (almost) in hand: painting my shed. Painting the inside is beyond my clumsy and trembling capabilities but I figured I could probably tackle the outside without too many issues. (Basically I'm tight and wanted to make sure my shed wouldn't rot in the rain. Can you see why Ivie and I are so well suited...?).

I managed better than I expected before I had to draft in the big boys to reach the parts smaller women can't. I was very glad to have Ivie and Drew on hand to paint the higher sections. We won't talk about who got on the roof - and how - to paint the apex. 

There was a ladder propped up against the back of the shed and I ducked underneath it from time to time to touch up some of the spots I'd missed. I wondered aloud if anyone was superstitious about it (they weren't) and I carried on. Then we started discussing phobias and superstitions more generally. 

Neat decking...

The scores are in and it's Drew - 0; me - 1 (new shoes on the table, yikes!); Ivie - many and varied, including the aforementioned triskaidekaphobia (also known as extreme superstition regarding the number thirteen). 

It turns out that Ivie is really quite serious about his feelings for the number 13. There are no lambs with number 13 sprayed on them - they go straight from 12 to 14; he doesn't relax fully until we're down to 12 ewes left to lamb; and he doesn't much care for the volume on his car radio being at 13. 

Tidying up also not my forte

As of this afternoon, we're down to 12 ewes which pleases Ivie for a couple of reasons. Partly, it's not 13 and partly, the end is in sight. Although I've learned enough about lambing over the last couple of years to know that this last dozen will really string it out, probably for another fortnight. 

Still, it's better than it was. 

Lambing: Part 4

 Things I have learned:

1. It needs more muscle power than I realised. 
2. I'm going to have to stop whining now. 

Acting like a grumpy toddler is not a good look at 46 and 11/12. But sometimes you just can't help it, right? I've been going up to the lambing shed night after night with Ivie and seeing absolutely no action. None. Nada. Zilch. So, I may have taken a kick at some straw then scuffed my way back to the house with my hands in my pockets and my bottom lip trailing on the ground the other night. 

I think up until yesterday, I'd seen four live lambs born and bottle fed a pet a couple of times (until he elbowed his way into another pen, little hooves on hips and demanded that the ewe next door adopt him right this minute). 

One of the things that I love about Ivie is that he knows exactly how much to push me and doesn't give me too much time to think about things. The first time I drove his car myself, I arrived in from a walk and he said, "can you pop to the petrol station and fill up my car?".  I was there and back before I knew it and his car and I were both still in one piece. (I should explain that Ivie's car is significantly bigger and more expensive than mine.)

This evening, I was starting to get tea ready when my phone rang. I saw it was Ivie and I assumed that the puppy was getting in amongst something she shouldn't and I was being called upon to go and extract her. Instead, he said, "do you want to come and lamb a ewe?". Thirty seconds later I was up at the shed with my sleeves rolled up, awaiting instructions. 

Something else Ivie is very good at is remaining calm pretty much all the time (rugby aside) so I knew that the ewe, lamb and I were in safe hands. 

The ewe had already lambed one herself and needed 'encouragement' to lie down. I was standing at the entrance to the shed but I'm pretty sure there should have been some coffers in the swear jar tonight. Anyway, Ivie had a bit of an investigation to make sure the second lamb was where it should be before letting me have a feel around. 

"Can you feel the feet and legs?"

"I think so."

"If you reach further back, you should feel the head."

It was difficult to keep hold of the legs and I was scared of pulling too hard and dislocating its shoulders or something. Ivie helped me give it a good pull at the right angle and out it came. I was relieved to see it was the right colour, it was opening its eyes and breathing. I squirted iodine on its navel and carried it over to the pen where we'd put the first lamb. The ewe followed, we shut the pen and I updated the blackboard. 

It certainly wasn't a solo mission and I'd need a lot more practice before I could do it on my own but at least I know I have to put my back into it. At the rate we've been going, it'll be next year before I have another go but the grumpy toddler has had her last outing to the shed.