New arrivals!

12th Jan

Before we went off to sleep last night, we had observed Barbara on the ‘Barbara-cam’, pawing the ground and behaving in an unsettled manner. I assured James that this was a sign that within hours she would go into labour (all the books say so!!).I was awakened this morning at 7 o’clock by James suddenly shouted ‘argh!’ as he came around from a dream about sheep giving birth. I was instantly wide awake and so I turned up the sound on the Barbara-cam. Barbara was making a very gentle bleating ‘murmur’ and my instinct told me that she was either giving birth or just about to. I rushed to pull on my clothes and told James that I was going to check it out. I arrived at her pen just in time to see her giving birth to a lamb and called James to come as quickly as he could. It soon became obvious that there was not one, but two lambs on the floor behind her. One had obviously been expelled earlier, but it was apparently untouched. Barbara began licking the twitching lamb which she had just given birth to, whilst James ran to rouse our neighbor (who had previously been a sheep farmer) and I began to try and revive the firstborn, unresponsive lamb. I cleaned its face of mucus, rubbed it with a towel and swung it by its back legs (as per the instruction manual), but the lamb seemed quite dead. I don’t know how long it had lain on the floor before we found it. Our neighbor arrived and we turned our attention to the second born lamb which appeared to be in a bad way. She was cold and unresponsive although she was breathing. We were just starting to see an improvement when something else fell away from Barbara. We went to look, expecting to see the afterbirth, but instead found that she had given birth to a third lamb! The morning was chilly, and James went to fetch a fan heater to warm and dry the two living lambs which were both small and feeble. After two hours of attention they were still weak and floppy and just seemed to want to go to sleep. Barbara kept pawing at them to try and make them get up, but they didn’t seem to have the energy. We persisted with the fan heater and about midday – success – both lambs stood up almost simultaneously and took their first wobbly steps.

Since then they have gone from strength to strength. They have to be helped to feed as they don’t seem to be able to find the teats on their own, but they are bright and alert and almost running around the pen already. Isn’t nature amazing? Imagine if we could walk and display such independence within hours of being born!

We haven’t chosen names yet, but tonight, over a bottle of wine with friends we discussed the possibilities. The favourites so far are brother and sister acts, ‘Donny and Marie’ or ‘Michael and Janet’. If anyone has any other suggestions I would love to hear them.

Magnetic moos

8th Jan

Did you know that cows swallow magnets?

James went to pay our milk bill at our friendly neighbour, the dairy farmer, and as is often the case was persuaded to stay and have a lunchtime aperitif (or two). He always comes back full of interesting facts about cows and this was today’s offering…

Apparently, whilst grazing, a cow might accidently ingest a piece of metal. This drops to the bottom front of her stomach. These pieces of metal can work themselves through the wall of the stomach and into her lungs or heart. Leaking digestive juices can cause infections that can be fatal to the poor old cow. So Jaques (and no doubt many farmers), have his cows swallow a large smooth magnet. The magnet falls to the bottom front of her stomach and it remains here, often for years, attracting the pieces of metal so that they do not penetrate the stomach wall. Amazing huh?

You learn something new every day. I must remember to tell the kids all about it tomorrow.

Big Brother is watching ewe

Sun 4th January 4, 2009
I haven’t managed to get around to writing my diary for nearly a month and yet so much has happened! Christmas has come and gone amidst a flurry of family visits, social engagements, overeating and late nights and now I am craving nights in, soup and my nice warm bed.
Barbara our pregnant ewe has recently been moved into the hangar next to the house where we can keep a closer eye on her. Today that eye got even closer because James rigged up a camera in her pen which displays to a little TV screen in the house. We are concerned that as this is likely to be a multiple birth, (she’s bulging out both sides which apparently indicates at least two lambs) we ought to be on hand to help out if needed. There is a microphone on the camera and it’s quite amusing to here loud baa-ing noises when I’m sitting in the lounge. It sounds like there’s a sheep in the kitchen!

We had a bit of an ‘incident’ with the goats and sheep yesterday. I was sitting in the kitchen when I suddenly saw a streak of brown animal leap past the window. This turned out to be Princess, the young female goat who had somehow escaped from the field where she and her mum had been left to graze with the sheep. James hastily caught her and tied her up in the hangar before going to check on the other animals in the field. Two minutes later he came racing back to the house, shouting for the boys to come to the field immediately to help him. It seemed that when Princess had jumped the fence she had damaged it in such a way that part of it was bent down to the ground. She had then come home, but the other goat and sheep had decided that the grass looked greener in the next field (our neighbour’s) and had trotted off for lunch. It took James and the boys some time to herd them back into our field. They were aided and abetted by Tony our puppy, which is half collie and seemed to know instinctively how to round them up and drive them forward! I wonder what he could do with some proper training. Our neighbours, obviously roused by the hullaballoo came to see what was going on, but just stood at the edge of the field and laughed! Fat lot of good that was…

Actually, there’s a bit of a ‘lurve thing’ going on with ‘Mama’ the goat and ‘Gilbert’ the ram. They won’t leave each other alone and she follows him around licking and nuzzling him. I wonder if it’s possible for goats and sheep to mate. Would they produce a ‘shoat’ or a ‘geep’?

I guess the holidays are over and we'll have to start thinking about 'working' again. What a shame, we were having such fun!