Our Life Recreated

I was so sure she was going to have twins and every day I would be out in the field looking at her lady parts hoping to see some signs of impending lambing.  Finally, one morning I saw her standing by herself and I knew that she was laboring.  I moved her to the barn thinking it would be a while, but when I came out two hours later, there was a little white lamb on the ground. 

 

I really only have experience with dogs, cats and goats having babies and I didn't think sheep could be that much different, but they are.  I kept waiting for the contractions to start up again for the next lamb but they never did.  There was only going to be one lamb.  I cautiously walked over to the little one so I could see if it was a boy or a girl, all the while secretly hoping for a girl and not trying to disturb Bonnie. I couldn't get over how little it was even though Bonnie seemed huge.

Much to my excitement, it was a girl.  I am overjoyed that I get to keep this little fluffy ewe.  She is so cute and seems to be very friendly right from the start.  I will be adding three more ewes to the herd next week so she will have a few friends.

        

I have been walking around with my camera the last couple of days trying to get close enough to take pictures of her.  Duckie has decided she wants to photo bomb me.  I think Duckie Is jealous of all the attention the lamb is getting.

I found a guy that travels around the country shearing.  He is also from North Carolina, not far from my home town.  It figures I would have to move to Alabama to find a shearer from North Carolina.   I had to be referred and luckily the lady i bought the sheep from also used him, so she referred me.  I got on the list and now I had to wait until he had time to come down south.

                                              

I happened to be the first private farm on his list and he showed up last Friday afternoon.  I didn't know what to expect but we had the sheep penned and waiting for him.  He moved in his large piece of equipment that ran his clippers and set down to shaving the sheep.  One by one he grabbed them and sat them on their bottoms.  The sheep never panicked and actually sat very still while he set to his work.  

I was impressed as I watched him roll the sheep around the floor while taking off their winter coats.  It was fascinating to watch.  I only have six sheep so it only took about 45 minutes and he was done.  Luckily, I was able to worm them before he turned them loose so I got to kill two birds with one stone.  It made that nasty job much easier.

Now I have a pile of wool in my barn that I am not sure what I am going to do with.  I am currently looking for someone who might be able to make it into yarn for me.  I love to knit and it would be really nice to be able to make something from the wool grown right here on my own farm.  We will see.

It is kidding and lambing season and the goats decided that February would be a good time to have babies.  Ivy went first and had a big beautiful boy full of moon spots.  She had one boy last season and kidded very easily, and I am thankful for that.  So many things can go wrong, but this time it was easy for her and me.

That same afternoon, Violet decided she wanted to go and she had triplets.  I was stunned because she didn't look that big.  I was sure it was twins, but triplets! And to top it off she had two that were polled.  Violets little boy was also polled.  I was ecstatic.  That meant I didn't have to disbud them which I hate doing.  Everyone settled in and were doing great.  Violet was handling the triplets with ease and things started to quite down.

Exactly one week later, Diva went into labor.  She is an old pro at kidding so I was really excited to see what she was going to give me.  I put her in the barn, thinking she was in early labor, only to come back a few minutes later to two babies on the ground.  One of them was stillborn, the other one was doing well.  I stayed with her and a few minutes later she had two more.  Another one was stillborn.  Diva still looked awfully big and I thought there might be another, but she was finished.  Four babies and only two survived.  I was heartbroken.  She ended up with a boy that looked exactly like the daddy and a little girl that looked exactly like her.  I was thrilled.  I left the barn that night very happy.  Little did I know that things would go very wrong very quickly.

The next day, I found one of my sheep away from the herd.  I was concerned and went to check it out.  She was having a hard time breathing and had a lot of mucous coming from her mouth and nose.  I got my husband to help carry her to the porch and I spent the rest of the day and night doing everything I could to help her.  I called a vet but couldn't find anyone to come help me; I was frantic and felt helpless. She passed away in the middle of the night.  I was devastated.

The next morning, I went to check on the goats.  I went into the barn and Diva was laying on her side.  She was dead.  I lost it at that moment.  What could have gone wrong?  She was fine when I checked on her before I went to bed.  Now I have two kids that have no mom.  I cried and cried.  I lost two of my animals in a matter of hours.  I was starting to question if this life was for me.

A few days later, one of the ewes went into labor and I had my first little lamb born on the farm .  It is a boy and he is so stinking cute.  That little life helped me with how low I was feeling.

I decided to let Diva's little girl go to a family that bought from me last year.  I was going to keep her, but after thinking about what direction I wanted the farm to go in, I let her go.  It was very hard for me to part with her.  She was all that I had left of Diva.  I loved Diva and I still miss her terribly.

We have sold all of the kids from this season and I have also sold the lamb.  They will all go to their new homes as soon as they are weaned.  I am hoping to have more lambs sometime this spring.  I also purchased three new doelings to add to the one doeling that I am retaining.  I am hoping the rest of the season will be uneventful.  I love new life, it is full of promise.  

I got three Kunekune pigs as two week old babies last spring.  I thought I would raise them to be my breeding pigs so I could have bacon seeds for the freezer.  I really wanted to raise my own meat, but I am having to reevaluate what I want to do on the farm.  The pigs are really hard on the fencing that my husband put up to keep them out of the road.  They seem to think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and maybe it is.

I am starting to think that maybe having pigs right now is not what I need to be doing, so I let them go to another family.  I will miss my little piggies so much, but I know that they will be happy in their new home.  

Hopefully one day I will be able to revisit having pigs in the future.  They are the sweetest animals and they added to the character of the farm.

I arrived at this man's farm to find a skinny, long-legged brown and white lamb lying on a towel by the back door.  The gentleman told me they found him nearly frozen to death out in the field.  Evidently, his mother had twins and decided to only claim one lamb.  He was so frail that my heart immediately melted for him. 

Now I have a new sheep. Although mine are miniature Southdown Babydoll sheep, this little guy happens to be a Katahdin, which is a hair sheep developed in the US in the last 60 years.  This breed was not something I had thought to add to my farm, but I could not walk away from this little guy.  

I brought him home and he settled in at my feet on a blanket and has been there ever since.  I got him to take a bottle and after some cuddles he fell fast asleep.  At bedtime, he would not let me leave him so he ended up in bed with me sleeping on my neck all night.  

At About 1:30 in the morning I heard his stomach start to growl, but I was not going to go down this road of night feedings so I made him wait til 5:30.  I made him his 4 ounce bottle, but after warming up all night under the cover, he decided that 8 ounces was more to his liking.  

All day today, he has been following me around looking to eat a full bottle at every chance.  I am so glad he is doing well after almost losing his life and I think he will make a nice addition to the farm.  I am not sure what we are going to do with him, I am thinking of getting him some girlfriends, but I am sure we will figure it out. Now to name him.