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Ten in one of the lambing pens eating her breakfast

We had three sheep lambing right in a row yesterday and boy are we beat because all three yows had to have our help! It's not easy trying to put lambing ropes on legs and snares around heads inside of the yow with one hand squashed in a tight (and straining!) space. And it's not fun causing pain either so that adds to the difficulty! I hate it when we have to stretch things and the poor yow cries out in pain!

Our other pure Texel named "Ten" (she had a 4 and a 6 painted on her back) went into labor and wasn't getting on with things, much to our frustration. It's not nice to pin a sheep down and force our hands in her and such! Poor animals. We are gentle but STILL!

I'm going to be a bit graphic here so this may not be good for young eyes.


One of Ten's lambs having a post-sook nap.
Ten's problem was that she was super tight in both her pelvis and her woowoo. Usually the pelvis slackens a bit and this allows the lamb to pass through - with a bit of work, but nothing drastic. There are certain parts that need to be stretched out - and normally this happens naturally as the animal strains and pushes. But Ten's lamb never left the womb because of the tight pelvis and so she never had a chance to push and work at things.

Normally when I put a hand in to a yow I can pass with only a minor amount of stress to the animal. But Ten was so tight I couldn't get even two fingers in without sending her to her feet. Both Erlend and I realized this was not going to be an easy lambing.

I sat on the ground and slowly worked my hand into Ten in an attempt at stretchign her a bit. It worked because these parts seem to know they are supposed to loosen up and after some urging they usually do. But still, it's painful and makes the sheep very miserable as she attempts to run away. It's not like we can explain to her what we are doing!!

After there was a bit more room I managed to fish out both of the lamb's legs and put the ropes on them. But when I pulled the legs the head wouldn't come through - it was too tight. Somehow I managed to ease my hand in with the snare but I was nervous: thus far I had always failed with the snare! But I didn't want to have to have Erlend put his huge hand into Ten!!


One of Ten's lambs having his breakfast!
So I worked at it - and amazingly I found a bit of room around the lamb's head! After several nearly unholy moments of frustration I finally managed to locate the lamb's ears. The snare is a pain though because you can only use one hand and you cannot have your hand scrunched up - it has to be straight so that it is flat and eases inside!

And the snare...it likes to bend and slip away. Also, it gets just as warm as everything else so then you can't really feel it! I managed to catch the snare under what little fingernail I had on my first finger and that is how I was able to get it into the yow and then around the lamb's head and behind his ears. I couldn't get the "lock" part to slip into the lamb's mouth because the snare was so bent and crooked. But Erlend said it should be fine.

Getting that lamb out was living hell for poor Ten. She was so tight that one of us had to pull her woowoo out in a big circle while the other worked at pulling the lamb's head through. At one point it was so tight that the lamb was going nowhere and Ten was howling and I was near tears. I kept waiting for something to rip!! But like I said, these parts seem to know that they are meant to loosen up - and Ten's did, but only a fraction of a bit! That lamb still came through a very tight space and Ten was howling and...the little critter was finally born!! We thought she was dead though - and she very nearly was! Erlend had to massage her heart and I was poking straw in her nose and we swung her like a cat until finally she started to cough and breathe and shake her head.

Erlend delivered the second lamb, a smaller ram lamb, which had nearly as hard of a time coming out but he was far more lively and strong. The yow lamb took a long time to finally get on her feet and we had to feed her with the stomach tube in the end because she wasn't getting up enough to sook.

They both look fine today though and Ten doesn't even seem to remember the misery of last night! Thankfully nothing tore so she's not in any real pain.

All I can hope is that the remaining yows deliver their lambs more easily and with less human intervention! Erlend said that if a flock of sheep get freaked out about something then they will almost always have hard deliveries. Well, there was that day not long ago when I called the vet because the sheep were totally wacky and crazed about something! Maybe this is the reason why we are having such a hard time at lambing? I dinnae ken.


Ten and one of her lambs - they look happy!