Thursday, March 3, 2011
A Lambing Journal - Day 10
It's 6 a.m., and I'm getting ready to head back to the ranch. While our loss of lambs seemed to slow a bit yesterday (only lost one), I'm still concerned. I realize that part of my frustration comes from fatigue, but every ewe that calls for a lamb that has died reminds me of my inability to solve this problem (so far). We should have a preliminary report from the diagnostic lab at Davis today, which will hopefully give us some clue as to what's going on. As I've said before, lambing is normally my favorite time of year. This year is different. I feel powerless and ineffectual.
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After all my doom and gloom, today is starting out very positive. All of the lambs that were born last night made it, and we had 2 more singles and a set of triplets during the night. One of the triplets came home to join our other bottle baby. The sun is shining. I'm hoping things are looking up!
ReplyDeleteThis turned into a beautiful spring-like day - sunshine and scattered clouds. For the first time, the lambs were as bouncy as I expect them to be.
ReplyDeleteWe're supposed to reach 60 degrees here tomorrow - what a treat!
Just returned home from checking the ewes (10 p.m.). I don't want to jinx myself, but things seemed different tonight - everybody was quiet and warm. As I write this, Sami is feeding the two bottle babies. They're still in the house, but she's vowed to move them to the barn this weekend!
ReplyDeleteMy bottle baby is in the barn now and is finally a bottle baby and not a tube-fed baby. It's only been 2 days but I was really dreading each feeding when she wouldn't take the bottle.
ReplyDelete