Hamlet and Hal ... or ... maybe Holmes

Emily the Icelandic gave us two more beautiful rams yesterday.

Well, she didn't so much give them, as we (by which I mean the vet) had to go in and take them.

But, whatever.

They're still gorgeous.

Daddy is Johnny Blue Lincoln Longwool. I wasn't sure how this Lincoln-Icelandic cross would turn out. At the time of breeding, I was still thinking Charlotte was the only bred ewe I had and a couple more Lincoln crosses, kind of like Brianna, would be fun. Had I realized I had so many oopsies, I probably would not have encouraged this breeding.

But I'm glad I did.

Just look at them.

H for Hubble stands for trouble

Can I just say,  H is a challenging letter for baby names.

But we're managing.

The goat kids are every bit as adorable as people said they would be -- big, curious, endearing personalities all the way around.

Marthajones, escape artist extraordinaire, gave birth to Hubble, the buckling on the left here. Hubble shares both his namesake and his inquisitive nature with a big telescope. Hubble is all of four and a half weeks old and maybe 12 inches high, but can already jump over 3 foot walls, which he does on his regular explorations.

Ameliapond gave birth to and then rejected, Hippo and Harlow. Hippo, short for Hippocrates, is the buckling in the back and Harlow, named after the ethologist who studied orphaned monkeys, is the doeling on the right. It doesn't hurt that she's movie star beautiful. Hippo and Harlow have thrived as bottle babies. Surrogate mothers rock. Ameliapond couldn't care less.

Once we got on the H roll, I figured it was as good a way as any to track all of this year's babies, not just the Pygoras.

Next up were Hercules, Hobbes, and Hamish, all three little black rams. Hercules is the big one in the front. He's Ladybug's baby. Ladybug's the white Bluefaced Leicester in the middle, making him a Bluefaced Leicester cross. Can't wait to see how his fleece turns out. Hobbes is the guy sitting just behind Hercules, sort of snuggled up with Ladybug. His mom is Mary, the Black Welsh off to the left. And finally Hamish, is the smallest of the three and the son of Jill, whose chin he is tucked up under. These three were born within a day or so of each other and are all the mystery offspring of a big collective ram break last fall, the first week in October. No telling who the dads are, sadly. All three look like typical Black Welsh, well, except that Hercules is huge and polled, which Black Welsh rams are not.

A few days after the three rams were born, Harper arrived. Oh look, another black lamb. She's the daughter of Dolly. Also of unknown fatherage from the same ram escape.

Next came the two little bottle babies who were living in my bathroom until a week ago. They're the last of the unplanned Black Welsh babies. Unlike the previous four, these two were a complete surprise and I'm still not sure how they came about. They seemed too late to be from the big escape, but who knows. Their mother is Eve. She's the oldest of the original Black Welsh ewes -- 7 maybe? She had twins last year as well and it really knocked her down hard. I spent all summer and fall trying to get her back into condition and swore I'd never breed her again. I was very, very careful to keep her away from the rams. Um, right. 

Helenka is the one in the blue sweater. Hamza is the little boy on the right. Hamza probably would have been ok without the bottle, but Helenka and Eve both needed the babies to come inside. It was touch and go with Helenka for a good couple of weeks, but everybody's doing well now.

And for something different -- the next guy to arrive was Houston. He's a twofer, born a week ago. So called, because when I agreed to rescue his Mom last fall, (she's Dallas, yes, see that fiber) I was unaware that she was pregnant. Ugh.

Sigh. For the moment they're living very comfortably at the stables across the road. Lucky them.

And finally, at least for the moment, we have Hiccup, our very first Lincoln baby. Charlotte, for her own stubborn reasons I guess, decided to have her babies in the old barn Monday -- you know, the barn where the foxes live. We found her Monday night just as the sun was setting. There were two lambs.  One was already gone and I have to say, looked wrong. The surviving ram lamb, Hiccup, couldn't have been more than a few minutes old, with the amniotic sac still around his waist, covered in goop and a thick layer of dust and grit. He's still a bit shell shocked, I assume from the stressful birth, but Charlotte is a devoted mom and has plenty of milk. I saw him bounce around yesterday for the first time, so I'm hopeful. I've been waiting a long time for a Lincoln baby and will be disappointed if we end up losing both of these. 

 

And that's it for now.  

Little boy lambs

So, I've got a lot of animal updates to get through.

Pause.

Right.

I've decided the random approach may be best.

I'm trying to avoid overthinking things these days. Too many thoughts. Too little time.

[Shaking head]

So, in no particular order, I'm going to start with the ram lambs, mostly cause Colum got his picture taken this morning.

Icelandic-Mountain lamb that he is, Colum likes to climb. That's his twin brother Dougal on the left.

Colum: Yes, can I help you?

Colum and Dougal are the sons of Emily (one of the crazy Icelandics) and Jerry Lee (one of the Black Welsh Mountain rams and owner of the best BWM fleece on the property; really nice by any standard).

Colum: Yum, honey locust pods. 

These two butterballs have the funny personalities and shapely round figures of Icelandics. Their spectacular fleeces are a hybrid of their two parents - no real tog like a purebred Icelandic would have, just long and fluffy and jet black. I had both sheared last week since I don't trust my ability to keep them clean over the winter. Very nice.

Emily, to her crazy-ass credit, was a great mom. Very devoted and protective and tolerant of her little boys. When I eventually weaned all the lambs, Emily took it hardest. On the upside, separating them from her allowed them to develop personalities that don't include the principle, "Run like hell when you see a human coming." (Smile. Emily and Devon bring out the truck driver in my own personality. ) 

Here, in front of Colum are Fortissimo and Jamie. 

Jamie, bless his little bottle baby heart, is the son of .... um wait, I'm having trouble remembering who his mom was....looking it up now. Ah yes, Jezibel, the mother of Jethro, and Jerry Lee. Jezibel wanted absolutely nothing to do with Jamie from the moment he hit the ground. Which is why I couldn't remember who he came from. She was adamant about it, so he was a bottle baby from the start. This surprised me since she was a pretty devoted mother to Jethro. I had two bottle babies (Clara was the other), both raised in the barn with everybody else. Jamie was, and still is, pretty small, even for a Black Welsh lamb. He's survived two serious bouts with barber pole, but is doing pretty well now. Knock on wood. My strategy these days is simply to feed feed feed the lambs, and in general keep them off the grass until they are much older, or the pastures are improved...or both. This strategy seems to be working. It was hard won. 

I think Fortissimo was one of the last I wrote about during lambing in the spring. He's Lucinda's and Jerry Lee's baby. Lucinda was a pretty good mom and Fortissimo has been easy to care for. His only problem is a tendency to butt people. He's done this since he was only a couple of weeks old. I discourage this (and yes I mean I yell at him and sometimes smack him hard when he does it) and it has lessened over time, but it does mean that when I get around to having some (or all) of the rams castrated, he'll be one of the first on the list. His fleece is pretty standard Black Welsh. Nothing fancy. Jamie's fleece is much nicer than Fortissimo's. Longer, softer, and fluffier.

Behind the homegrown Black Welsh ram lambs are two newcomers. Darcy and Bingley. These two little guys are Cormos. They came from a nearby breeder who didn't want to feed them over the winter. The breeder's flock routinely tests under 20 microns, so how could I refuse? These two were also sheered last week. Their lamb fleeces are like butter. Short, but swee-eeeeet. Their personalities are also sweet, and shy despite having been here for a good while now. I suspect they'll come around eventually -- and grow quite a bit too. Cormos are not known as small sheep. Bingley, the white one, has the most beautiful face. 

Handsome boys.

 You can see how much bigger they are than Jamie, whose head is poking out around the post. And there, in the far back, stretching her little head up to see around one of the other lambs is...um...Tiny Tim.

Tiny Tim, Bingley, and Darcy.

Who's still very tiny. 

And very clearly a she. 

Whoops. 

I'll have to give her back story when I update about the ewe lambs. 

Hattie gets us back on track

Losing Jethro last week was upsetting in more ways than one. The vet thinks he may have had a pre-existing heart defect, but we'll never really know. The heart problem could itself have been the result of barber pole worms.

Yes, f%*&ing barber pole worms.

Even though the Black Welsh were unaffected by the worms last summer, little Jethro had turned up weak and anemic recently. I had just treated him for barber pole worms a few days before he went down.

For those who might not be familiar with them, the barber pole worm attaches itself, with its teeth, into the lining of the gut and drains the animal's blood, causing severe anemia and eventual death in susceptible animals. Young animals, with immature rumens, are more susceptible than mature ones and I struggled most of last summer and fall trying to save my Bluefaced Leicester lambs from this parasite. I eventually lost Cricket from complications of the worm - pneumonia in his case.

One of the challenges with barber pole worms is drug resistance. They've developed immunity to most of the available dewormers, making them very hard to control. It is possible that the strain we have is a resistant strain. I don't know where it came from, but since I had not had to do much worming before, it probably came in from outside. One of the other animals I suppose. In any case, our struggle only abated last fall when I took the lambs off grass altogether, preventing them from ingesting any more larvae. Around the same time, the weather got cold enough to break the parasites' life cycle.

But temps warmed up recently, with several days in late March rising well into the 50s. Glorious in every way, except for its effect on the barber pole worms.

They can overwinter.

Jethro seemed off and for some reason I checked his eyelids, though I thought I was dealing with coccidia. I was surprised to find pale lids -- a sign of anemia, and immediately dewormed him (too late though, I guess.)

Ironically, because I had just treated Jethro with the heavy-duty, off label dewormer used by the vet last year, she couldn't confirm the barber poles in his case. But this doctor was the same who had pulled Bumblebee, the first BFL to go down, back from the brink last summer and was very enamored with her. I've seen the vet several times since then and she always asks about Bumblebee.

So she asked, "How's Bumblebee? Is she pale too?"

Well, honestly, Bumblebee and her friends are in separate housing, off grass and we're barely out of winter (I mean, jeez, it went down to 14 degrees just a week ago), so I hadn't thought to check her eyes.

I thought we were safe.

I went straight home and checked.

Pale lids all around.

F*******ING WORM.

I spent the week collecting fecals, conferring with the vet, and ultimately launching some heavy duty worming protocols.

And they're not even out on grass yet. We don't HAVE grass yet.

Our best guess is that some of the worms from last summer went into a dormant state in the lambs' guts and the recent warm days caused a bloom. Except for poor Jethro, we caught it early, but I am bracing myself for the summer. I have to hope that the fact that the BFLs are now a year old and their rumens are presumably mature, they will be able to handle the worms better this summer.

As for the new lambs? Well, they are all Black Welsh or Black Welsh crosses and I continue to believe, Jethro notwithstanding, that these mountain sheep are tough little cookies, as befits their primitive status, and they should be ok.

And on that note, I introduce baby #11 and Hattie's first. A Black Welsh Mountain/Lincoln cross ewe lamb. Only minutes old here. She's big. I can't wait to see how her fleece grows out.

             

 

Don't come any closer lady, she's MINE.  

Get your own Easter lamb.

Baby #10 needs a name

I am a ewe lamb. 

I need a name or the lady will call me Babysheep, 

just like Babycat. 

I am not a cat. 

Somebody think of a name for me.

Please.

So far, the siblings and cousins of Baby #10 are called

Jack and Jill (Bo Sheep's twins)

Hullabuloo (so big she made her mother Bo Welsh scream at her birth)

Coyote Lullaby (Sally's ewe lamb born during the snowmelt)

Echo (Mary's ewe lamb)

Fortissimo (Lucinda's ram lamb) 

#7 and #8 ewe lambs from Eve (Hey, what are we? Chopped Liver? We need names too.)

Miss Clara (Emmylou's ewe lamb)

The mother of #10 is Patsy. 

A note from Miss Clara

Hello,

I am baby number 9. I was born in the middle of the night Friday night. That makes me about 2 days old in this picture. The farmer lady brought me inside for the night because my mom has no milk and I just can't get warm outside. This is the first good sleep I've had, wrapped up in the farmer lady's coat while she did chores at midnight last night. One handed. Go farmer lady! I'm tiny -- tinier than my first 6 sisters and 2 brothers, but not quite as tiny as my 7th sister who was born just this morning. She's REALLY small. Her mom doesn't have any milk either, but at least her mom lets her try to drink.

Pffft.

The farmer lady is a bit behind or she would have written herself. She'll catch up one day. Or not.

Me? I'm off to nap again.

Faithfully yours,
Miss Clara of Tyche's Run

A night to be born

Ewe lamb number three, Sally's daughter, 

arrived late last night during the great snow melt-off. 

A chorus of coyotes greeted her across the fence line. 

The mist and howls swirled alike. 

From the barn door.

Turn your volume up.

Dumbo

Ok, not really. It's just that her ears seem so bigggg.

This little one was born yesterday afternoon. Her poor mama, Bo, really struggled to push her out. That wide load? It was one big singleton. Her big floppy ears make me think that Johnny Blue really is her daddy. Huh.

I was on the ball this time and saw the whole thing.

I did not know that sheep can scream.  :-o

Fortunately, nothing went too awry, and the little one did finally emerge. And nurse. And survive the night. A lamb hat trick.

We'll have to wait and see about tomorrow.

Wide load

No more lambs yet, but Bo may be harboring a few or twelve. 

Born still

A couple of weeks ago, Clementine, the Lincoln ewe, had a bad case of the runs that I couldn't get under control, so I took her in to the vet school for help.

While we there, they did an ultrasound. I was sure she was bred.

I was wrong.

Despite living continuously with Johnny Blue, the Lincoln ram, for a good 18 months, she was definitely not pregnant. And for that matter, Emily and Devon, the two Icelandics, have lived with Johnny since last January, and neither of them have reproduced. And even though Johnny has had uninterrupted access to all the Black Welsh ewes since July, I noted over and over how many of them continued to cycle right through the fall.

All of which is to say, I'd sort of given up on Johnny Blue's chances of being a dad. And since macho man Jed, the Black Welsh herdsire, has been sequestered since shortly after doing the tango with Bo Sheep way back in August (resulting in Jack and Jill), I'd allowed myself to relax and start to believe that we were having no more lambs this season.

Dumb.

Dumb.

Dumb.

Maggie, one of the Black Welsh ewes gave birth to a little ram this afternoon. He was already gone by the time I walked in on this ridiculously cold day, though I think I didn't miss his arrival by much. He lay on the ground outside under the shed roof, where the Black Welsh ewes like to sit and watch the world. His umbilical cord and amniotic sac were still attached. It looked like Maggie had just walked away. Since she's an experienced mom, with three daughters in the flock (Jezebel, little Jethro's mom, and last year's twins, Loretta and Dolly), I'm guessing he was born still. Maggie seems to be ok -- eating, drinking, chewing her cud, and surrounded by her girls. I'll keep an eye on her for a few days all the same.

I don't know that there's anything I could have done if I'd been there, but I still feel badly.

I discovered two more ewes with prepped and primed udders -- Welsh Bo and Eve. Eve is one of the ones I thought I'd seen cycle repeatedly. Wrong again I guess.

At night check just now, Bo was hanging off in a corner by herself, so she may ready to go. Thankfully, it's not supposed to be quite as cold tonight as last.