Monday 28 February 2011

We have our first lambs of 2011

They were the reason why there was no blog last night. We were in the barn watching and waiting for their mum to deliver. We decided at 11pm that nothing was going to happen, so went to bed. When Tim did the 6am check, there were 2 lambs with their mum. Twin gimmer (ewe) lambs
These are our first Teeswater lambs and it's amazing how big their feet and elbows are. They remind me of a heavy horse's foal, all legs and feet.
When my friend and fellow smallholder called to look at the lambs mid morning, we were about to top the lambs up with a bottle, as they were looking a little hollow sided. But a quick check on mum revealed that one of her teats still had it's waxy plug so the lambs were finding it difficult to suckle any milk. So the ewe was quickly turned over, Jayne and I milked the ewe to get the milk flowing and then "latched" a lamb on to each teat.
They very quickly got the idea and soon had very full tummies. This evening, when I checked in on the lambs after work, they were certainly a lot fatter and starting to try and bounce around. A very good sign.
The other Teeswater ewe is due tomorrow, but is showing no signs what so ever. But it can all happen in a very short space of time.

4 comments:

Debbie, Barnacre Alpacas said...

They do have chunky knees. Keep the photo's coming I have a while to wait for my three lambs yet!

Freyalyn said...

Well done - lovely little lambs. Hope there's no problems with all the rest.

Posie said...

Ah the first lambs of spring, hopefully ours won't start arriving for another month yet.

Anonymous said...

I love lambing time, ours started lambing the day before yesterday after keeping us waiting an extra couple of weeks. It was my first 'watch' of this years lambing this morning and we had twin boys!