2008 Lambs (all 10 of them)

Enjoy the antics of the new lambs.

1/22/08  Our first lamb of the season.  Chip was born to Nellie. 

This pic was taken soon after he was born.
Chip knows to head straight for the snack bar.
1/28/08  The second set of lambs in 2008.  Milky gave us two boys. 

These pics were taken the morning after (on 1/29).  The babes are about 18 hours old.  Looking at the combined length of the two lambs compared to Milky, it's hard to see how they were inside her just yesterday.
A close-up of Milky's darker ram lamb.
1/29/08 In the barn waiting for their breakfast.  At only 6 days old, Chip knows how to hang out with the big guys/gals.
Chow time!  Chip hasn't tasted any yet.  But, he'll soon be pushing in to the dishes with the rest of them.
1/30/08 and we have more new lambs, so Milky and her twins have been booted out of the nursery.  Here they are discovering the world at 2 days old.  (Not quite 2 days, actually - they're only about 36 hours old.)  They know to stick close to mom!
1-30-08 Noname, the yearling ewe who escaped the knife because she got pregnant, just delivered twins!  Here's her ewe lamb at not quite an hour old.  Still damp.
And, here's the ram lamb.  Still wet, but hungry and drinking already.  I think he was born first, but didn't get cleaned off right away because she moved about 10 feet away to have the girl.  He looks darker because he's still soaking wet, but they're about the same color dried off.
About an hour later, and they're in the nursery.  This is the ewe lamb trying to find the magic fountain.  She doesn't take well to directions, but she has already had a sip so I'm not worried.
2/1/2008

Milky and her twins hanging out at the hay shed.
2/3/08

Noname and her twins just released from the nursery and hightailing it for the flock.  They can keep up with her at a fast trot. 

She's in so much of a hurry to rejoin the others, she only stopped twice to make sure they were still with her. 

The newest twins get a thorough inspection by the flock.  Prince, the ram, greeted them first, then the ladies take their turns.  There was a bit of a mix-up when the two sets of twins met.  But their mommies sorted it out.

That's a very pregnant Mammy front and center.
2/4/08

Noname and her 5-day-old twins are in the back center.  Unless it's feeding time, she tries to keep them away from the rest of the herd.  Her little girl will chase anything with a faucet (working or not), which tends to cause confusion. 

A pregnant Mammy front left.  You can see Milky's twins lazing about to the right.
Nellie and Chip.  He's already 13 days old!
Milky and her week-old lambs.
A close-up of Milky's black lamb.  Isn't he photogenic?
We interrupt these cute fuzzy babies to bring you a pre-lamb pic.

Opal's next.  Her load has shifted down, her bag's tight, and her back end is loose.  But, her voice hasn't changed yet. You can see her belly jumping as her lambs kick. 

That's her yearling ewe lamb, Swirl, in the background.
2/7/08 (Three days after the pic of Opal was taken.)

Opal had triplets this morning.  Two boys and a girl (to the left). 

A time warp comment written the day after pics were taken:  The white/brown boy (far right) has turned into a bottle baby.  He wasn't quite as robust as the others, so we gave him a little via bottle.  Now he knows where the good stuff comes from.
Now back to 2/7:

Opal's ewe lamb.  She's the smallest, but the feistiest, of the lot.
The giant of the litter.  We call him Frank, as in Frankenstein.
And this is what Opal looks like afterwards.  A bit thinner, don't ya think?
2/11/08

Our bottle baby, now officially named "Number 3," and Ivan are great buddies.  It was real cold outside, so rather than stand outside in teens with wind, Bob brought #3 in for his nighttime bottle.  Ivan is doing what he does outside... making sure that his puppy is properly groomed.

OK, I know you're asking "what kind of a name is that?!?!?"  Well, Rose called the baby SuperPooper or SweetiePie.  Bob refused to use either (thinking of course of yelling either at the top of his lungs to summon the soon-to-be-larger lamb for his bottle).  So, we settled on #3.
Ivan licks up the spills on the other end, too.  No sour milk beard for #3!

By the way, all three of Opal's triplets are doing well.  Fiesty (the little girl) is a regular pogo stick and Frank jumps around some, too.  All three are still with Opal in the nursery for a few more days. We might release them Friday.... stay tuned!
We released Opal on Wednesday 2/13, rather than waiting until Friday.  Number 3 was more interested in sticking with Bob, Ivan, and Rose than the others.  He knows where his food comes from.  Didn't get any pics that day, since it was rainy.  However we do have a funny story: 

When I released them, Opal and her two other lambs ran for the barn to be with the other sheep.  Number 3, however, followed me to the door of the house.  He runs as fast as I do, and he didn't respond to Opal's calls.  So, he hung out below the steps for a little while.  I had to find a way to get him to stay with the sheep...  Since the sheep were hanging around in the barn, I decided it would be best to lure him there with a bottle.  I tried setting up his bottle in the hay, but whenever I stepped away, he'd follow me.  Yikes!  After several attempts to get away, I walked through the crowd of sheep and hid on the other side of the hay feeder.  When he got distracted by a passing ewe, I bolted.  Finally, he was with the sheep!

Bob solved his problem a different way.  He put Number 3 over a fence to which every side the other sheep were.  Then he ran.  After crying from his abrupt abandonment, he would join the other sheep. 

2-15-08

Here's Uncle Ivan and Number 3.  Whenever Ivan goes outside he has an instant buddy...
who follows him everywhere!

Won't passers-by be surprised to be met at the gate by Ivan and his sidekick Number 3 the Guard-Lamb?
When Ivan isn't around, any dog will do.  Number 3 has found Mommy Missy.

Gotta watch out, though, because Ivan gets very jealous and will run to intercept him from the dangers of any other wolf-type critter.  Or any other sheep, for that matter!

Ivan's been playing ewe, big time!  He will go over to Number 3 when he's with the flock and and tries to use his relationship with Number 3 (and the other lambs) to get in with the sheep.  They know better.
Here's a pic of Rose feeding Number 3. 

We've since mounted his bottle on the fence and are teaching Uncle Ivan to take him to his bottle and then jump the fence to get away.  Number 3 is learning where the gates are, though, and it won't be long before he tries following Ivan in the doggy door.  We are NOT looking forward to that moment.

On the other hand,  Number 3 is getting more comfortable with the geeps and will hang out with them while we're in the house.  He's not too particular which of the geeps he hangs out with, though.
2/17/08

Time to update you on the rest of the lambs.  They're growing like weeds!

Here's Chip, the first born.  He was calmly chewing his cud until I got close enough for the pic.  Then he cried for his mommy.

You can see some of the others in the background.  The two fully visible are Frank and Fiesty, two of Opal's triplets. (#3 is the other and right now he's busy poking around me to try to find a bottle.  He thinks I must have one somewhere.)
Chip was on the subburbs of lamb city.  Here's a shot of city central.

From left to right, there's Opal's Fiesty, Milky's twins (ShoePolish and Chinstrap) on either side of her, and NoName's twins. 

Missing are Chip, who went to find Nellie for a snack, Frank, who's just to the left of this shot, and #3, who's still trying to find a nipple on my knee.
And another shot from a different angle.  Chip is in the foreground, so you might think it's just that he's closer that he looks so much larger.  It's not.  He really is so much bigger than the others.  It's not just that he's six days older than the next set -- he has an udder to himself.
NoName feeding her twins, George and Georgia.  George got his name from Curious George, since he started off trying to figure out everything.  Georgia.... just because George's sister needs a name.
Opal with Frank and Fiesty, who are now 10 days old.
Another interruption of our entertainment to give you a pre-lambing shot of Mammy.  She's looking pretty close.  We'll let you know when it happens.
2/17/08 (late night)

Well, that was quick!  Mammy had two lambs tonight.  She had the first one, a ewe lamb, next to the hay shed.  I moved them into the nursery where she delivered her little boy (the one to the left in this pic).  I got to watch the delivery by flashlight.  He's about half an hour old in this pic.

They live up to her name (pronounced properly, it's Maaaaaaamy), and have been singing since they were born.  They're much more vocal than the other lambs have been.  All I could think of at the time is that if they were out in the wild, they would be perfect predator beacons and not last very long.
2/19/2008

Here are Mammy's twins in the nursery at 1-1/2 days old..

All the sheep have lambed in less than a month.  We now have 7 ram lambs and 3 ewe lambs.  The final lamb census is as follows:

Ewe Date Ram Lamb Ewe Lamb
Nellie Jan 22 Chip (stillborn)
Milky Jan 28 ShoePolish & Chinstrap  
NoName Jan 30 George Georgia
Opal Feb 7 Frank & Number 3 Feisty
Jackie Feb 12 (stillborn)  
Mammy Feb 17 Mickey Sylvia
2/20/08

Morning:  Bad news update.  The sheep got attacked by some critter last night.  Got up this morning to find #3 dead in the yard and the sheep traumatized, in an unusual location, and absolutely silent.  Frank is also AWOL, assumed killed and taken away.  The tip of Nellie's tail is bleeding (not much), but enough to account for the streaks of blood on Nellie, Chip, and NoName.  None of the other sheep have obvious injuries.

After we made a thorough search and the sheep are more comfortable, a distraught Opal is calling incessantly for Frank (and, presumably #3, but she didn't track him as well as the other two).  Poor Uncle Ivan.  He knew where #3 was and went immediately to him to try to get him up.  Burial services will be later this morning.

We're on a farm and these things happen.  We're considering how to protect the rest of the lambs/sheep tonight.  The trouble with a small enclosure is that if a predator gets in, there tends to be a slaughter.

Mid-Afternoon:  Good news update.  Opal's calling was not in vain.  Frank showed up this afternoon.  He must have gotten scattered from the herd during the attack and hid out in the woods all day.  Imagine Bob's shock when he counted lambs at 3pm and found seven (plus the two in the nursery).
2/23/08

Mammy and her twins let out of the nursery this morning. 

The babies took their first steps outside while Mammy was still eating her grain.  They're both very active and it was hard to get a good shot of the two pogo sticks.
Once they joined the herd, there was chaos as Sylvia got separated from Mammy and Mickey.  Here, Sylvia is getting the once-over from both Jackie and Prince.  She looks a little scared.

That monster to the right is Chip with his mommy, Nellie.  (Can you believe Chip is already a month old?)  To the left are Opal and her Feisty and Frank, who are now 2 weeks old.

Well, you probably thought we were finished having lambs.  (We did, obviously.)  However, Swirl decided to drop one more on us!  (Technically, she had two, but the second was stillborn and quite tiny.)  So now we're back up to 10 living lambs.  We can now add another line to the table:

Swirl Mar 13 WrongWay & (stillborn)  

By the way, someone happened to see Bob at the road last week and stopped to tell him that Frank had been found about a city-block distance away and that they had returned him to us.  He must have gotten chased away by whatever attacked us that night and then eluded his hunter.  Poor guy couldn't find his way back home.  Thank you from us and Opal to the friend who returned him!
3/14/08

Meet WrongWay, Swirl's baby boy, not quite 12 hours old in this pic.  He was born after dark last night.  WrongWay took longer than usual to gain control of his back left leg (still not standing after about 1/2 hour), however he finally got the hang of it.

Why "WrongWay"?  I went out to check on them after about an hour. By then he could stand, but when he decided to seek out his mommy he ran full speed ahead, right past Swirl, and hit the wall.  She started licking on him, so he started climbing the wall trying to find her.  Later, after he got turned around, he zoomed right past her in the opposite direction.  Fortunately, the nursery is smallish, so he didn't get far.  Maybe I should have named him "OneSpeed" or "FastForward."

This morning, he's got much better control over speed and direction. 

Here are some pics of some of the others the same morning, so you can see how they're growing.

From left to right:  Milky, Georgia, Opal, ShoePolish, Chinstrap, Frank.
From left to right:  Chip, NoName, Jack (the extra legs behind NoName), Jackie (in the back), Georgia & George, Nellie, Milky (facing left).