It's Killing Me!

The waiting, that is!

Sparkles' lambs will be a week old tomorrow (tonight at 3 am, actually, but who's counting?) and Emerald and Peridot are still pregnant.

Peridot this morning

Emerald this morning.The plan was:

All lambs would come within 3-4 days of one another. All ewes and lambs would be in the barn for a week and a half. Then ALL the sheep could be turned loose on the fields at the same time.

Someone didn't get the memo. And now the ewes are going stir-crazy, and the lambs need to run free.

So today, I had to do some very complicated maneuvering. The main problem: the barn doesn't have a door (because we'll be expanding it again once the weather warms up), so we have a giant piece of plywood screwed-in to block the entrance. This would be fine if everyone had adhered to THE PLAN.

Never fear! I came up with a solution.

I moved Knox into the chicken coup (the chickens were not very happy with this situation).

The llamas were released into their temporary grazing area consisting of only two strands of electric wire that's not actually turned on. It's really just a suggestion to them, and if they wanted out, it would be pretty easy. I usually put them in there for an hour or two while I'm out doing chores in order to keep an eye on them. The sheep get to use it occasionally, but Knox has been banned due to his blatant disrespect of the non-threatening wires. This is what it looked like the day we set it up.

I then went into the barn, scooped up the lambs and had Sparkles follow me (well, the lambs) out the front door of the barn, around a set of pine trees, through the pasture gate and into the field. Luckily, she's the queen bee, and Emerald and Peridot followed her.

Once they were secured in the field, I pulled Knox (good thing he has horns and is still pretty small) out of the coup and into the secure barn.

Everyone is happy for the day, but tonight I'll have to do all this again in reverse. 

The ewes need to lamb!

What a good mom

Sparkles is so patient with the little buggers. 

Here they are, via our lambcam, using her as a jungle gym.

First Lambs of the Season!

Sparkles had her twins last night!

I woke up at about 2:40 am from a deep sleep, worried about Sparkles. She had been acting different yesterday, and I was pretty sure her time was soon. I couldn't shake the feeling, so I finally got up and checked our lambcam.

I saw one lamb up and moving with Starr, our llama standing guard, and I was out the door running. At some point I said to my husband, "Mike! Lambs!" When I got to the barn, Starr was still over the lamb, and Sparkles was to the other one. I scooped them up and put all three in a lambing pen.

Mike joined me about 5 minutes later, and then we stared at them for an hour.

The EweThe Ram

Starr standing guard.

The Clean-Up Crew

Yesterday, Morgan and I cleaned out the whole barn and spread fresh straw. I closed up the lambing pens so that they'd stay clean until needed.

But this morning, I noticed on our lambcam that our work was being inspected by some very strict professionals . . .

Ewe's Fat!

I can't believe we don't have lambs yet. Sparkles, poor thing, just keeps getting bigger and bigger. But when I put hay out or their nightly ration of pellets, she comes running. Yes, running.

Here's a shot of her in the barn from our web cam:

Of course, she's laying down, but that is one big Shetland. And I'm pretty sure she's only having twins. I'll be surprised if she has triplets--they don't really run in her blood line.

Peridot's no waif, either:

Emerald is still small, but just starting to bag up, so at least I know she's pregnant.

Here's where the ladies stood a week ago as far as their udders go:

Emerald 3/23/12

Peridot 3/23/12Sparkles 3/23/12As of today, Sparkles and Peridot are neck and neck for winning the largest udder contest. I'd take more pictures, but every time I'm out there taking snap shots of sheep butts, Starr gives me really weird looks. I'm sure she thinks I'm a weirdy.

Can't really blame her; I never thought I'd be this fascinated with sheep udders either!