Avert your eyes!

For those of you that are queazy, now you can't say I didn't warn you.

So during the fair a couple weeks ago, as if it wasn't a busy enough week as it was, we were right in the middle of lambing as well.  We implanted 5 of our ewes with CIDRs to bring them into heat during their 'off' season.  4 of them got pregnant. 80% success rate is crazy good.  We do this so we will have lambs in the fall instead of having all of our ewes lamb in the springtime.  Just opens up our market for different fairs and jackpots.

I came home from the fair in the the middle of the day on Tuesday.  I knew we had one more ewe to go, so I wanted to check on her while Caylob was taking a nap.  She had to go anytime because she was already 2 days late.  I went out to the barn and lo and behold, there were two hooves sticking out.  Not knowing how long she had been in labor, I was going to give her about 15 minutes and see what happend and if nothing, I was going in.  With sheep, you want to give them about an hour for labor, if they don't progress you need to assist.  I went and grabbed my camera, because who wouldn't want to see this? :) (Erin).  When I came back...

Another buck lamb.  Thank goodness, because we only had 1 other one.

I walked away for a little while, because unlike humans, having people around only stresses them out and could prolong labor.  Came back about 10 minutes later and saw...

See the white tips on the hooves?

if you get queazy easily, don't continue scrolling.  it's all part of agriculture and this is what our livelihood is all about.  out with the old and in the with the new!

This particular ewe had one of our best lambs last year.  However, she is a TERRIBLE mom.  Since she was a yearling last year, we decided to give her one more chance since 90% of the time they are just fine the next go around.  Well, not this one.  She is getting a free ride to the sales yard once her lamb reaches 60 days old.

Did you can't that?  Once her lamb reaches 60 days old, not lambS.  Yeah, we tried for several days to get one of them to nurse, we ended up bottle feeding it for a couple days and then the mom decided to either step on it or kick it and unfortunately broke both of its back legs.  There is only one way to go from there.  It's unfortunate, but it's a fact of life.  If we had tried to cast them, his quality of life would have been terrible, and it just wouldn't have been right.  A phone call was made to the vet and she came and took care of him.

All part of living on a farm.  Unfortunate? Yes.  But it is our responsibility to give these animals the best life possible while they are here on our farm.  We take it very seriously and no decision is made lightly.  It's tough to make a decision to get rid of one of our top 5 ewes.  But, if she is going to deprive her lambs of milk and severely injure them, then she isn't worth keeping.