I'm getting pretty good at determining when a ewe is about to deliver. The past two times when I predicted they were going to deliver the next morning, they delivered the next morning. It's not based on guessing but but the how hollow she looks and the size of her udder. Basically it balloons up the day before. So last night I called it again in regards to Charlotte. We have yet seen a live birth so Farm Girl set her alarm for 3am and I put a phone next to my bedside. At 3:30am I got a phone call from the barn. Charlotte had already delivered her first lamb. I quickly through on my housecoat and barn coat and ran out to the barn. It took her another hour to deliver the second. Both holstein coloured little lambs. The first born was a nice big ewe lamb and the second a tall ram lamb. Charlotte came to me pregnant, the sire is not Dodge but the Dorper ram from the farm she came from.
We actually caught most of the birth on film at the end as it took so long and our batteries were dying. We have lots of film of the first 50 minutes when she thought it would come out real quick but as I said, it took longer than anticipated so my camera had already died and Farm Girl's iphone was beginning to act up. But it's mostly there, if not the best quality.
This is the continuation however there is a few minutes between without being filmed as Farm Girl did not realize that the camera shut off.
I made another switcharoo in the barn. This time the only ones to move were Dodge and Durango. Dodge moved out of the open ewe pen and into the new ewes pen.
And Durango moved out of the new ewes pen and into the open ewe pen.
This way if any ewes were missed in breeding by one ram, hopefully the other will get the job done.
And around noon today, she finally delivered two male lambs. One a white and brown speckled and the other my first panda.
We have named them Boston and Bruins. We name our ewes in alphabetical order but had not intention of naming the rams as they are destined for slaughter but unintentionally we named the first two male lambs born with names that began with the letter B. So we decided to continue that theme. My hubby was wearing a Boston Bruins sweatshirt the day they were born and hence they were named accordingly.
BOSTON
Born: March 3, 2014
Dam: Queenie
Sire: Dodge
Twin: Bruins
BRUINS
Born: March 3, 2014
Dam: Queenie
Sire: Dodge
Twin: Boston
