Same song, second verse...

...or third and fourth verse, depending on how you sing it!

In the middle of the day there was a break in the cold, driving rain so I let everyone except the new mamas and babes out for some fresh grass and exercise. As I glanced out the windows from time to time, I could see four sheep mostly grazing - and Inky mostly not. Her tail wasn't out like Dinah's was yesterday, but I was suspicious - and a little stressed. A third lambing jug/nursery pen would mean tight quarters for both Dinah and Inky - and taking the heat lamp from Dinah's lamb, who worried me last night and this morning with his less than perky behavior after a strong start.

Fortunately, he is back to bouncy lamb behavior now, whether due to the natural course of things or the shot of Karo syrup and a bit of Dinah's milk via syringe I foisted upon him. It didn't hurt that Inky gave him a few more hours....

When I did a barn check at 7:00 this evening, Inky was sporting a water bag. I quickly determined that dividing Dinah's pen would not work, so I hustled Dinah and son into the corner pen with Brava and son, threw down fresh straw, and moved Inky into the lambing jug.

After 30 minutes with no progress and not knowing how long it had been since the water bag appeared, I decided to check for a malpresentation. Two feet and a nose: check. I paged Rick and fretted. Dinah watched intently:
Just as Rick arrived, Inky finally laid down and pushed out a jet black lamb. At first I thought Inky had replicated herself, but then discovered it was another ram without horn buds. Rick asked if I thought that was it, and I said probably, based on both his ultrasound and her size. He told me I'd better check, just in case. So in I went - to find more feet! Rick thought I should pull it, but I decided to give Inky a chance to clean up "blackie" and deliver lamb #2 on her own. Eventually a second water bag appeared, but it was blood-tinged and Inky wasn't pushing at all. When that water bag broke an hour after the first lamb was delivered I decided I wasn't going to risk losing a lamb and went in again. I fished around and found two back feet and pulled out a small, live brown lamb with lots of head spotting. Did Inky and Braveheart give me my spotted girl? Uh, no, another ram lamb!

I managed to coax two marginal photos out of my mostly dead camera batteries, made sure both boys found the buffet, dipped their navels, and weighed them ("blackie" is 6+ lbs. and "brownie" is 5+ lbs.).

So . . . "phase 1" lambing lasted five days and resulted in four live ram lambs, three of whom appear to be at least half-polled. I'm thinking about renaming the first two, and using music-related names for the last two (refer to title), so stay tuned. I just hope Katie is incubating some girls for me!

That's it for tonight at . . .