Lundy went into labor just after feeding tonight. In the minutes it took me to grab my camera and Maggie, she had given birth to a still born, slightly premature ram lamb (his eyes weren’t yet open but he looked otherwise normal.) Shortly thereafter she delivered a tiny lamb, still in his sack, that had clearly died a long time ago. We tried to resuscitate the first born, just in case there was a chance, and tubed him with hot milk as well, but my gut says he was dead before he was born.

This is the third problem lamb we had this year- Victoria’s abortion, Catalina’s second lamb that was really just some organs and feet and now this. All three of the non-viable fetuses had strange looking nodules on them that neither I or nor Dr. Grover has ever seen before. Dr. G seems baffled by the situation- he is a large animal vet only and I trust him completely- and he has his doubts that the state lab will give us any satisfactory answers. This will probably remain a mystery, and I will learn to live with it.

I am very disappointed about losing two lambs, but I’m trying hard not to get down about it. We’ve had a very successful lambing season. Nine ewe lambs and 7 ram lambs, all healthy, is nothing to be down about.

The good news is that lambing is officially over. I’m going to celebrate with a gin and tonic and a long, hot bath.

Lundy is still looking around for her babies, calling loudly for them, and probably will until tomorrow.

Miss Liberty just delivered a lamb-o-saurus rex. That’s more than 16 pounds of lamb you’re looking at!

His name is Knightley.

Sorry for all these photo posts- I’ve been running myself crazy this week getting ready for the big party of Saturday. I’ll get back to writing soon but in the meantime, enjoy the lambs.

I hate to get anyone’s hopes up, but Tiny is rallying tonight. He’s much more alert, much more active and nursing from his mama again. We’ll keep tubing him every four hours through night and hope he continues to improve. Update in the morning.

Mama is Martha, of Vanity Fair fame.

Born at 4:00 a.m. to first time mama Capri. Very healthy and absolutely enormous.

Eagle-eyes Maggie spotted Catalina, one of our larger ewes, out in the pasture and noticed something tiny at her feet. We found this itsy bitsy munchkin around 6 p.m.

He is very small and pretty weak. I’ve been tube feeding  him and he’s getting stronger, but I have to be honest and tell you that I don’t know if this little peanut is going to make it through the night.

Here he is next to one of the lambs born yesterday. He’s roughly half the size and just kind of pitiful looking. I’ve seen lambs this small and weak survive and I’ve seen some that haven’t.  Fingers crossed that he’s a fighter. I’ll be getting up every couple of hours to tube him and to check for new lambs so I’ll keep you updated.

EDITED TO ADD:

10:40 p.m. Mr. Tiny is standing for the first time!

2:09 a.m. tubed him again and afterwards he got up on his feet again. He’s still weak but he’s stronger.

4:00 a.m. no change

6:30 a.m. tube fed and gave him an energy drench. he’s starting to look more like a normal lamb, just smaller. still not walking but making noise which is good.

10:30 a.m. Tube fed the peanut and he’s looking good. Standing on his own but still not walking.

2:30 p.m. Tube fed. No changes but he has a name: Rushworth

Snow and Jeykll both gave birth to sets of twins this morning. Snow’s are both ram lambs; Jekyll had a boy and a girl. These are Snow’s boys, Collins and Churchill.

Jeykll’s twins are Bingley (female) and Brandon (male).

More pics later after I’ve had a nap and the babies are cleaned up a bit.

Amelia and Daisy both graced us with twin ewe lambs this morning.

These are Amelia’s twins.

Daisy surprised the hell out of me. She has always singled in the past and only had one lamb when we found her this morning. A full hour later after we’d cleaned the three babies up and gone inside for breakfast, we heard something on the baby monitor. Maggie ran outside and found another ewe lamb with Daisy.

As near as we can tell, Amelia’s twins were born between 8:00 and 8:30 a.m. making Erin (postcardsfromNorfolk) the winner of the lambing contest. Erin, you get to choose a name from Jane Austen for our first born lamb.

The only sour note to our day was the fact that Amelia was attacked by a predator before going into labor. She is fine, apart from a few scratches and a bitten off ear. Cini must have run the coyote or dog off pretty quickly or we’d have lost her and the two beautiful ewe lambs she was carrying.

During all the lambing madness, Teddy (Tosh’s dad) and Robert showed up to help us get our new sign up. We still have to paint the post black but I couldn’t resist showing you a pic. Isn’t it lovely?