91热爆

(I'll post pictures below the story)

Elsie-yow could not get her lambs out so we had to help the poor critter. We hate interfering with Mother Nature because it's very stressful on the animal. I have been hand-feeding Elsie and touching her back and head for about two weeks in order to help tame her down as she's one of our two pure Texel yows. I hope to tame her lambs so I need Elsie to be tame first and foremost!

Well, my wheedling and feeding and back-scratching worked! Even though we had to pin her down in order for Erlend to deliver her lambs she has not held a sheep grudge.

Since I did not feel confident enough to lamb Elsie I was the one doing the pinning down while Erlend set to work. However, I did put my hand inside of Elsie and feel the lambs so that I could learn to "picture" lambs inside of a yow. Erlend has been teaching me how to recognize what direction a calf or lamb is going by feeling certain joints and also the hooves.

The whole time I was holding Elsie in place I kept getting my bum bitten by Magnus the ram (and daddy!) who was in the next pen. He's such a cheek!

Erlend pulled the first lamb out and she wasn't doing to well! We tapped her eye and she gave the teeniest flinch and so we knew there was hope! We held her aloft so all of the birth fluids could drain and then we thumped her and rubbed her all while saying, "Come on lamb! Come on!" A few moments passed and then there was a big *splutter* and a cough - and the wee yow lamb was alive and kicking! (And making the cutest noise in the world - some kind of meepy-beepy mini-baah.)

I took the lamb to Elsie and even before it reached her she was sticking her tongue out and trying to lick it! She is a good mother! Erlend delivered the next lamb and it was a ram! He had a much slower start then the yow lamb and he refused to sook. We left them alone for a while but when I checked back half an hour later I found the yow lamb bursting with a tummy full of milk and the ram lamb skinny, cold and empty of milk.

I climbed into the pen and picked up the ram all while expecting Elsie to smash me to bits. She never budged. I positioned the ram at the tit, eased his wee jaws open and then squirted milk into his mouth. This got him sooking the air!! But whenever I tried to fasten him to the tit he would go limp and give up. Now matter how hard I tried he would not take the tit. He would sook the milk from my cupped palm and he would sook as I squirted it into his mouth. But he refused to sook on his own! I ended up lying there on my stomach in the nasty straw squirting beesmilk into his mouth while he made his tongue into that familiar sooking "U" shape. Meanwhile Elsie stood there and did not protest! The yow lamb was a pest though - she kept bumping my sticky slick fingers off of the equally sticky slick teat. Arrrg!!

Erlend and Geordie finally came in and checked the lambs. We put Elsie into the "lamb adopter" stanchon and Geordie and Erlend took turns milking her while I held the yow lamb in front of her. This way she stayed calm and didn't fight to escape the stanchon. (The ram lamb was in with her udder but he STILL refused to sook!)

Erlend then took the beesmilk and put it into a big syringe and then, after passing a tube down into the ram lamb's stomach, he fed the little boy his first meal! He also gave the lambs a jag of Vitiman E and soon enough the ram was merrily sooking away with his sister!


Elsie keeps a keen eye on the yow lamb - but the lamb refused to hold still and stay put!


I ended up holding the wriggly lamb so Elsie would stay calm.


All attempts to get the ram lamb to sook came to nothing. He must have been vitiman E deficient.


So he was given his first meal via a stomach tube. Farming isn't always romantic and cute - sometimes you have to interfere with Mother Nature.


"Where's the udder?? Where is it??"


We have sooks!