The lambing season from purgatory continues

I would call this the lambing season from hell but for the three beautiful ewe lambs on the ground. Still, the losses and trauma to get them and keep them surely qualifies as purgatory, if I believed in such a place. (I don't believe in a place called hell, either, but that's a Bible study for another time.)

As I mentioned in my last post, Bernadette was giving me subtle signs (the ones Rick missed on Bette) that she was close to lambing. I installed her in a lambing 'jug' (pen) set up within the Sheep Sheraton, and checked on her periodically throughout Tuesday and Tuesday night. When I went down to do chores and check on her Wednesday morning, her tail was messy, but still no sign of labor. Uh-oh. I grabbed a rubber glove and some lube and discovered . . . ring womb. I couldn't get in more than two or three fingers, nor could I feel any lamb parts. Rick had already left, but he came right home at my call to do an emergency c-section, the first in my flock.

With the way things have been going, I kept my hopes on saving the ewe. When Rick pulled out a stressed but living lamb, my heart jumped. It was hard seeing it wet and cold on the concrete floor of the barn, but Rick had to get the ewe closed up and I had to hold her steady for him, so I could only pray. When I was finally free to pick it up and towel it off some, I could hardly believe my eyes; we had been blessed with yet another ewe lamb, the splashiest one yet!

Rick told me to run up the house and grab a by-now very hungry Bling so we could try to graft her onto a ewe with milk. In the meantime, he milked some colostrum out of Bernadette and tube-fed her lamb to give it a boost. We tried to get Bling onto a teat, but having never nursed, she couldn't figure out what we were doing to her, so she got a bottle. Then into the lambing jug they all went, with me as nurse to watch over all the 'patients.'

Half-sisters Broadway and Bling (yes, newborn Broadway is actually a bit bigger)

Rick had given Bernie a small dose of oxytocin to encourage mothering and milk let-down, with instructions on giving her more if needed. But she started pawing, and then lay down and started PUSHING. Rick called about then and said not to give her more oxytocin (I hadn't); hopefully the ring womb would keep her from pushing out her uterus. After watching her strain awhile, I saw something protruding and called Rick in a panic: "She's pushing her uterus out!" He told me to put my hand against it to keep her from expelling it, but when I did, the mass was HARD. What the ? ? ? "I think it's a LAMB! I thought you said there was only ONE!!!" He told me to pull it out, and I helped Bernadette deliver a very strange, dead fetus, encapsulated in a tight sack, all folded up into the size of a very large sweet potato. Apparently that was in the birth canal, the size and shape of which would not be conducive to dilating her cervix.

The good news is that Bernie doesn't seem to be antagonistic to either lamb; the bad news is that she seems to have no mothering instinct towards either lamb and is definitely against to the idea of either of them nursing off of her. So every three hours Bling gets a bottle and I restrain Bernie so her daughter Broadway (I needed another "flashy" name and her dam is named after stage star Bernadette Peters) can nurse. It's hard because Bling is so clearly bonded to me and wants to follow me out of the pen, but having a sister and learning to be a sheep is essential to her future. And when she's not missing me, she's starting to play lamb games!

I was hoping to leave a less complicated job to my angelic friends who are holding down the fort for us while we are gone, but it is not to be. The other good news is that Bridget looks nowhere close to lambing; please don't let those be 'famous last words' 😳

Sleep-deprived and exhausted at . . .