Lambs to the Slaughter

Last year our ovine ladies enjoyed the company of Cecil the ugly ram for a few weeks. He was on loan from the Millards. He seemed happy enough escorting our ladies around.....until he decided the grass was greener on the other side of the fence, literally. He managed to get out, cross the highway and go courting the neighbour's ewes. Needless to say the neighbour was NOT happy and Cecil had to return to his owner. I didn't think he had been successful with our ladies, three were maidens and the other four were getting on in years.

The sheep got fat. As they do every winter with plentiful green feed. So I still couldn't tell for certain if they were pregnant.....until I finally got to see one of the udders, it was larger than normal. Alan Millard came over in June and confirmed that all the ladies were expecting!

It was the end of July when I was doing a head count and noticed Lulu was not with the others. I went for a walk to the top of the paddock and saw her there. "Watcha doin', Lul... omygodohmygodohmygod! We have TWINS!!!!"



It was extremely exciting! I was then checking on the others three times a day to see if they were birthing....but nothing. For two weeks.

Then bam, bam, bam! One after another they all started lambing.

Emma had twin boys, Ethel had a boy and a girl, Blacky I had twin stillborns, Blacky II had a boy and girl, Whitey I had two stillborns and Whitey II had a single stillborn. It was a stressful week! First there were Blacky I's stillborns, she didn't want to leave them lying under the tree. Then Blacky II's little boy wasn't thriving, I sat outside in the freezing weather for an hour one night, nursing him and trying to get him to take some milk. He was dead by morning though, which was upsetting for someone who was pregnant! But the most stressful was Whitey I.

I went outside early one morning and saw a white blob in the paddock. Whitey had lain down and couldn't get up. Upon closer inspection, she had a lamb's head and legs hanging out of her ass. Michael yelled up at me, "you are going to have to pull it out!" It was a slippery sucker, and very dead. Then Michael yells "you are going to have to put your hand in and see if there's a twin!" I WHAT!!! So I did. And there was a hoof. Ewwwwwwww! 
 I wasn't able to pull the lamb out so I had to call my knight in shining...flanno. Alan Millard arrived in a flash, he was able to get the lamb out but had to push it back up the birth canal first.  It couldn't be birthed because the head was lying backwards, not along the front legs so it was stuck.  Obviously, it was dead.

So our flock grew very quickly from seven to fourteen, but then down to thirteen.  Whitey I didn't cope too well with people's hands up her clacker, she had difficulty in walking over the following week so we made the decision to send her to the great paddock in the sky.  My KISF (knight in shining flanno) came over and collected her and gave her a feed of metal, quick and sweet.  He also marked all the lambs and vaccinated them. Love seeing how the professionals do it!

We decided that the female lambs would be replacement stock and the (ex) male lambs would be slaughtered.

It wasn't until March that we finally got two of the lambs slaughtered, Rammy (one of Lulu's) and another male.  Alan dropped them off at the butcher's in Casterton, who took them to abbatoir in Edenhope.  A week later I picked up two heavy plastic bags from the butchers for the grand sum of $66!