Halfway Through: The 2020 Lambing Season (So Far)

Our 2020 lambing season kicked off on February 21, when ewe 251 (who was the first to lamb last year) gave birth to twins. Later that day (144 days since we turned the rams in with the ewes in late September 2019), 2011 also gave birth to twins. Today, the tenth day of our lambing season, we're nearly halfway done. A look back - and a look ahead - seems in order.

The underlying (or perhaps overarching) theme for our 2020 lambing season has been drought. Since the last week of January, we've received less than 0.25 inches of rain. Warm temperatures have exacerbated our dry conditions; the blue oaks in our lambing pastures are completely leafed out - earlier than I can ever remember. The grass is short - and as my partner Roger says - the ground feels crunchy when we walk on it. By the end of February, we'd received just over half of our "normal" year-to-date precipitation. Thankfully, we have enough grass to get through lambing (when our ewes have their highest demand for nutritious forage). At this point, though, we're worried that we won't have a buffer of dry forage to bring the ewes back to this autumn.

The silver lining to our dry February has been outstanding lambing weather. Last year, we were coping with cold, wet, and windy weather - which can be lethal for lambs. This year, we've had just one rainy night (so far) and no freezing temperatures. And it shows in the vigor of our lambs. At the moment, we're supposed to get a bit of wet weather towards the end of the week, but the temperatures are still predicted to top out in the 60's.

Coming in to lambing, I was a bit worried that we might have some huge lambs - we'd grazed the ewes on alfalfa stubble in November (a point in their pregnancies where excess nutrition can result in large fetuses). Knock on wood, so far this hasn't been a problem. We've had just one dystocia (a ewe that had triplets) - the rest of the lambs have been born without assistance.

Even with favorable conditions and experienced ewes, we have had a few challenges. The ewe that had triplets had a vaginal prolapse several days before she lambed - and again several days after. All three of her lambs are still alive, but she's only raising one of them (one came home as a bottle lamb; the other was adopted by another ewe). Over the weekend, another ewe gave birth to an enormous ewe lamb and a malformed, tiny ram lamb. The ram lamb didn't make it. And yesterday, two ewes gave birth to twins - and this morning had each lost a lamb. One of the ewes (226) seemed to develop an infection. I brought her ewe lamb home today (and she subsequently died); her ram lamb was adopted by another ewe. The other ewe (2198) had a lamb that simply disappeared; we have no idea where she went.

Today is the kind of day that I find most difficult. I feel like we failed the sheep - losing two lambs in one day is an economic blow, to be certain. But I feel it more deeply than that - I feel like the loss could have been avoided if I'd just been more observant. My friend and fellow shepherd Liz Hubbard puts it this way, "When losing a lamb doesn't bother us, we should stop being shepherds." I've realized this year that even when I do everything I can do to care for our sheep, there are times when it won't be enough. I don't know if I be at peace with this - today was a hard day.

Despite these setbacks (and they happen every year), I love lambing season. I love the new life that gambols across our rangeland pastures. I love watching a ewe clean her newborn lambs and urge them back towards her teats. I love commiserating with our livestock guardian dogs, who seem increasingly tired as lambing season progresses. I love watching my border collies change their approach when they're moving a ewe with lambs.

We're halfway done - over the next three weeks, the rest of our 2020 lamb crop will arrive. We might get rain - and we might not. We'll take what comes, and we'll continue to pay attention to the little details that add up to a successful lambing season. Wendell Berry writes, 

"the ewe flock, bred in October, brings forth in March. This so far remains, this pain and renewal, whatever war is being fought. We go through the annual passage of birth and death, triumph and heartbreak, love and exasperation, mud, milk, mucus, and blood. Yet once more the young ewe stands with her lambs in the dawn light, the lambs well-suckled and dry. There is no happiness like this."

 Indeed, there is no happiness like this.