Yesterday I found this pile of lambs napping just inside the barn door after a very busy morning.  A recent discovery has caused a flurry of excitement within the fold.   With the milder days I have been allowing the lambs access to the small yard adjacent to the birthing barn.  Their initial response to setting foot outdoors for the first time is one of amazement and tentative curiosity.    Although they have been able to see outside through the panel in the barn doorway for weeks, clearly it had never occured to them that they could ever actually go there.    As the ewes meander out into the yard, the lambs are emboldened and begin to explore.  By the second or third day of venturing outdoors, their initial apprehension has turned to sheer exuberance.   They can’t wait for me to lift the panel that holds them inside at night.  Now, as I was fill water  buckets and spread fresh straw, the lambs get down to the serious business of their new favorite pastimes.

Leaping from the barn threshold is a good way to warm up.  There’s a contest to see who can get the most air.

Racing is the next order of business.  While the mother’s are at the manger, every lamb gets swept up in the mini stampede that starts in the back of the barn, runs down the aisle, spills out the door . . .

down the hill toward the fence . . . .

and then up the home stretch back to the barn.  I know these shots are a little fuzzy but it’s nearly impossible to capture this pack of woolly thoroughbreds in motion.     As if running a mini Derby, they repeat this loop, again and again, until finally some of the older ones lose interest and look for some rocks to climb and some little ones simply collapse in an exhausted heap.   

This intense burst of activity is a phenomena that seems to start at about two weeks of age and then last for about two weeks.   I suspect it’s developmental; they are testing their bodies, discovering what their spindly legs can do, what it’s like to jump high, to run fast.  There’s the added novelty of the newly discovered outdoors  I love watching them and get a little sad when they pass this phase and settle into proper sheep behavior (ie: serious grazing as they venture out to pasture).

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copyright 2008 Barbara Parry, Foxfire Fiber & Designs.  All rights  reserved.

Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm

I stepped outside the birthing barn this week to tend to the rest of the flock during this warm, dry weather.  Time for Butch and Sundance, our Angora goats, to move to their summer quarters at the top of the hill.  Since it’s quite a hike and the boys are still wearing their heavy winter coats,  we all took a little ride.

Getting them into the Highlander took some bribery.  Bananas were involved.  Once on board, they seemed to

enjoy the ride. 

Surprisingly, getting them out of the car took some coaxing.   Myopic and in dire need of shearing (next Monday), they were having trouble gauging the distance to the ground.

With some persuasion from Holly, the boys made the leap from the tailgate to their new paddock.  Here they inspect their new digs.

Lambing updates coming soon!

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copyright 2008 Barbara Parry, Foxfire Fiber & Designs.  All rights reserved.

Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm

Two thirds way through lambing season, my brain is a bit fogged from long hours in the barn, lack of sleep and sensible meals, and a general sense of disconnection from the outside world.  Mental fuzziness really affects decision making – but not always in a good way – as proven by the events of this weekend where I made a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time . . . . .

As we had suspected, once we had started bottle feeding Issey, his mother wouldn’t have him back.  The dilemma – where to keep one orphan lamb?

A potential answer seemed to present itself on Saturday night when Lavender, another first time ewe, went into labor.  I had heard that it is possible to graft a motherless lamb onto a ewe if the lamb is young enough and if you are able to slip the "foster lamb" into the ewe’s presence as she sees her own lamb for the first time.  The process is officially called "slime grafting" since an important step in getting the ewe to accept a lamb that isn’t hers is to rub as much birthing goo as possible onto the orphan, so that both lambs smell alike.   

As Lavender’s lamb was born, Mike deftly passed Issey to me.  I quickly bathed him in the warm, sticky saline-smelling amniotic fluid that came with the newborn lamb.  When Lavender turned to see her new lamb, she saw instead saw two lambs.   She was skeptical from the start.  Either I hadn’t slathered enough goop onto Issey, or she was just smart enough to sense that something wasn’t  kosher.   In cleaning her lamb, she pretty carefully  avoided making tongue contact with Issey, despite my attempt to position the two lambs in proximity. 

Then she delivered a second lamb. 

Lavender began cleaning all three lambs and then it slowly seemed to register that something still wasn’t right.  Her focus went back to the first lamb.  No matter how hard  I tried to get her to clean her second lamb, she passed right over him.  "Born-again" Issey by this time was on his feet and had found her udder.  Having a 24 hour age advantage, he wasted no time in helping himself.

I placed the three lambs beneath the warming light thinking the sight of them all together in her pen would stir her maternal instinct. . . .

She didn’t buy it.  Inspecting them all closely, she quickly identified her favorite and once again ignored the other two.   She then became more forceful in expressing her feelings about the two who weren’t hers, smacking them rather hard with her head each time they stood.

I then began to realized I had made a pretty big mistake.  Not only did the slime graft fail, but I had now confused a perfectly able first time ewe into rejecting one of her own lambs.  Essentially I now had two orphans on my hands . . .

Which, given the late hour, meant we had two unexpected house guests for the night.  We placed Issey and "the other guy" (was too tired to name the poor thing) in a box beside our bed.  The lambs , who seemed comforted by the barn sounds coming over the baby monitor, woke hungry about every two hours, so I bottled them.  Part way through the night, they became restless.  I let them out to stretch and walk around, so they could make themselves sleepy again, and I spent what was left of  the night not-sleeping  on the floor where I could keep tabs on two lambs bumping about the bedroom.   I was afraid one would stick his nose in an electric outlet or pull the clock radio off the night table.   It was a very long night.  Each time a ewe’s call came over the baby monitor, the lambs answered.

Thank goodness I didn’t have to go to the barn to deliver more lambs. 

By morning I knew I had to get these lambs back to the barn and, if at all possible,  re-acquainted with their respective moms.  It sometimes works using a device called a stanchion, in which a ewe can stand up and lie down, but she cannot see which lamb is nursing.  A stanchioned ewe will sometimes come to accept a lamb she had formerly rejected. 

Here is Issey (left) with his mom Sage and brother Miyake.  He seems happy to be with his family, back in the barn.    Sage seems resigned to mothering twins, as long as she can’t see both of them.  Time will tell if  I have convinced her to accept her lamb.

Lavender is also stanchioned, directly facing Sage so they can commiserate on the stupidity of humans.  Lavender too seems to have settled down to mothering.   I know I will be pretty lucky if I pull this off.   I will certainly think twice before trying to interfere with the natural bonding process.

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copyright 2008 Barbara Parry, Foxfire Fiber & Designs.  All rights reserved.

Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm

Good news!  At 12:30 am  Issey was on his feet and looking for something to eat.   He had his first bottle feeding while standing beside me in the pen and continues to grow stronger and more alert.   He’s getting a lot of attention from us, but his mom is not showing much interest in him, although she seems to sense he belongs to her.  It looks like we’ll have a bottle lamb,  unless she has a change of heart.   At least his brother seems bonded to him – from all the time spent together under the heat lamp.

Issey having lunch with Mike.   

Short post, I’m tired from barn checks all night.  Eight more ewes to go.  Thanks for the great ideas for names  and also for your concern over Issey.   

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copyright 2008, Barbara Parry, Foxfire Fiber & Designs.  All rights reserved.

Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm

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I love barn mornings.  First light, soft and diffused,  filters in through the clerestory on the barn’s east side.

Clustered in little pods, the lambs nestle in the straw, bathing in warmth.

Light fills the space.  Lots of languid stretching as the lambs shake and rise, some more reluctantly than others . . . .and within minutes the barn comes to life.   Ewes paw and call for grain.  Lambs begin to rustle and race.   It’s one of my favorite moments.   .  . .

Although this morning, one lamb did not rise.

Issey was second in a pair of twins born last evening.  Preceeded by brother, Miyake,  Issey arrived encased within an intact bag of waters.   I saw him take his first breath before the membranes ruptured, drawing a lungful of amniotic fluid rather than air.   Working fast, I  cleared his airways and shook him to expel the fluid.   It was a good few minutes before I could detect the rhythmic rise and fall of breath within his  little form. 

My friend Chris stopped in just in time to witness me shaking a newborn lamb upside down by its hind legs.   As I worked with the lamb, he rigged a heater box in the corner of the pen.  While lamb number one was monopolizing his mom’s udder, lamb number two was visibly trembling, not good, given the warm evening.  Too weak to stand, let along nurse, it was clear that this little guy was spiraling downward.

A newborn lamb needs colostrum as quickly as possible after birth.  A ewe’s first milk contains antibodies which are absorbed through the lamb’s stomach and flow directly into the bloodstream.   This ewe, Sage, was light on colostrum, but I milked what I could.

When a lamb is too weak to nurse,  intervention is necessary.  The best way to give nutrients is directly into the stomach via a feeding tube.  This isn’t a procedure I like to perform.  When sliding a rubber tube pass the soft palate and down the esophagus of a newborn lamb, one must be careful not to inadvertently slide the tube into the lungs.   The last thing this little lamb needed was another lungful of fluid.   

The tubing process has always made me . . . . nervous.  Chris looked a little nervous too when I told him he was going to help.   As Chris supported the lamb and held it still, I slowly fed ten inches of tube into its mouth and right down into its stomach.  When I blew softly into the tube, we could feel the stomach expand, telling us we were in the right place.  I attached a 2 ounce syringe of warm milk to the end of the feeding tube and carefully pushed the plunger.   We returned a rather limp and tired lamb to his mother and crossed our fingers.  By this time, the first lamb was also pretty wiped out, so together they crashed beneath a warm light.   My guarded hope was that mother would take over with both lambs, once they awoke.

During my midnight barn check, both Issey and Miyake appreared to be sleeping peacefully, with their mother stationed closeby.  All seemed well enough.  When I checked their pen this morning, however, only one lamb was on its feet nursing.

It’s hard to say if Issey ever made it up to nurse during the night.    Before feeding the rest of the flock, I stomach tubed him again.   Within minutes, he opened his eyes and peered unsteadily at his surroundings.  I tried placing him on his feet, near his mom, but his spindly legs collapsed beneath him.    Not  good.

With a barn full of hungry ewes demanding breakfast, I placed him back under the lamp and went to feed the flock.

Holly and I worked with Issey throughout the day, in between other tasks.  At 3 pm, he still had only fed via the tube and, since  I doubted he would survive another night, I felt a trip to the vet was in order.   Wrapped snuggly in a towel, ensconced in a grain pan, Issey rode beside me on the front seat of as I drove to Doc Schmitt’s.   I was not optimistic. 

A quick exam showed that pneumonia had set in.  Coupled with lack of nourishment, things were not looking good.  Still, Doc felt it was worth trying a shot of antibiotics and continuing with tube feeding for one more night. 

So that’s where we are.  As Mike and I inspected all the lambs at the end of the day, we were feeling a bit deflated.  Raising animals has ups and downs – we’ve been doing this long enough to know.  But still, it’s hard when you care so much about your sheep –  you really want ALL of them to be well – and  it’s especially hard watching a young animal languish.   Tomorrow morning may tell the story for  Issey.

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copyright 2008 Barbara Parry, Foxfire Fiber & Designs.  All rights reserved.

Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm

My day started at 2 a.m. with the arrival of a pair of Cormo ram lambs, Valentino and Armani.   By dinner time, another six lambs had landed:  Dolce & Gabbana, Calvin & Blass,  Polo & Hilfiger joined newcomers Lagerfeld, Karan, Burberry and McQueen.   The idea to name this year’s lambs for fashion designers came to me while watching this season’s Project Runway program on Bravo.  I don’t want much t.v. at all, and trust me, I am no fashionista, but I became hooked on this show last year and tuned in each week to watch Heidi Klum announce who was "in" and who was "out".   I thought this would be a fun theme, with lots of great names for sheep.  Now that I am about half way through, I am fishing a little bit for names, especially good ones for rams, since that seems to be this year’s gender trend (sigh).   So, if you have any suggestions, let’s hear them.

I thought I would share a few moments from a busy day in the birthing barn, to give some sense of how hard a ewe works in the process of delivering.

This is Carrera (taken this afternoon).  At 1:45 a.m. this morning I awoke to the sound of her snickering to lambs who hadn’t yet arrived.  She delivered her first lamb shortly after I entered the barn, and then a second not long after.

[
This picture shows the series of birthing pens that line the east side of the barn.   New arrivals are tucked inside a 5 x 5 foot pen with their mom so they can bond, learn to nurse, and adjust to their vast new surroundings.

Some of the pens have fancy heat boxes, which the lambs adore.  Twins bond really well with each other when they share a golden pool of warmth in the corner of the pen.

Lambs and ewes stay in the pens for about 3 days.  Then the lambs are ear tagged and docked and sent out to the large nursery pen.]

Carrerra and her first lamb, taken at 2:30 a.m.

Later . . .

Mid afternoon, Holly called me to the barn.   First-time mother, Verbena, had been in labor for an hour and was having strong contractions.  Here she is in the early stages of pushing.  The reddish bubble is the sac of water emerging as she has a large contraction.

Her Lamaze coach arrives.

Fifteen minutes later,  here she is with a little ewe-ling, "Dolce".  Holly was so pleased.

Within the hour, Cayenne, another first-timer began labor.  Having delivered one lamb, here she struggles to deliver her second.   (easier to see if you enlarge the image)  Birthing is incredibly tiring for the ewes.   

Although exhausted, a  good ewe will lick each lamb all over its body, which cleans and dries the lambs and also stimulates their suckling instinct.  A soft dialog of snickers and cries accompanies the process.  The bonding between ewe and lamb strengthens.  In a barn full of 40 nearly identical lambs, ewes and lambs rely on scent (and voice to some extent)  to identify each other.

The afternoon wound down with Ursa’s twins, one solid black and one white ram lamb.   My hands were pretty full by then, so no pics right now.   

I am always grateful when lambs arrive in the light of day.  As I write, I can hear many new voices over the baby monitor.  Maybe I will get lucky with a solid night’s rest tonight.

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copyright 2008 Barbara Parry, Foxfire Fiber & Designs.  All rights reserved.

Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm

It’s been a busy twelve hours.  I’m short on sleep so I’ll show now and tell more a little later . . . .

Pansy & new lambs:  Pucci & Gucci

Curious flock checks out the new arrivals:

Above, Donatella (using brother Gianni as a pillow).

A smug looking Hugo, almost a week old.

No pics of my latest arrivals, born around 6 this morning.  Buttercup delivered a ewe and ram: Chanel and Dior.

By now, you have probably figured out this year’s name theme.

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copyright 2008, Barbara Parry, Foxfire Fiber & Designs.  All rights reserved.

My week began with a barn check at day break.    The sound of rustling straw via the audio monitor pulled me from sleep, so I decided to head on over to the barn for a peek at the ewes.  It’s early April, maple syrup season is winding down and my barn, brimming with expectant mothers, is still void  of lambs.  It feels a little weird.

An inspection of the birthing ward revealed nothing out of the ordinary.   As the sun filled the barn the girls were shuffling back and forth along the feeders, eyeing me, hoping for an early breakfast.    As I shook some flakes of hay,  they fanned out and voraciously attacked the feeders.  Clearly their lambs are creating appetites.

We were preparing for the shearer  this morning, so an early start worked well.  The game plan included shearing Leicesters and a couple of fine wool who we missed on the last round.

When help arrived, we rounded up the gang and pulled off the coats that had been protecting the fleeces throughout the winter.  It’s fairly easy to see which parts of the fleece have been covered.

At first the wool looks a little squished, but within a few minutes, the locks loosen and spring back to life.   We were really excited to see those glossy  longwool fleeces.    For comparison, here Cilantro & Fennel – two fine wool boys – bashfully wait their turn on the shearing board.   Their fleeces are far more dense and also heavier.  Fennel resembled a giant marshmallow.   Although not as long as the Leicesters, the wool is much finer and also much higher in lanolin content. 

In contrast to our first shearing on a brisk day in early March, this week we were practically working in shirt sleeves.  At last  the weather seems to have shifted, and it was the first day that truly felt like winter has at last let go.  Throughout the day we took turns sauntering over to the birthing barn to check on the ewes.  The only action, however, was in the shearing shed. 

Late afternoon, after stacking bags of freshly shorn wool, feeding the sheep and putting the barns back in order, it appeared that we were lamb-less yet another day.   

The exertion of catching sheep all day really knocked me out that evening.  However, just before midnight I heard (via the baby monitor) the unmistakable sound of a new arrival in the barn.  A quick glance at the lamb cam showed a soggy little lamb  getting a thorough tongue washing from his mom, Kodiak.  He was followed shortly by a second ram lamb.  After dipping their cords in iodine and getting the little trio settled in a bonding pen, I had a moment to grab my camera.

Meet Hugo, our first arrival,  conked out in the middle of mom’s midnight snack.  While his brother, Boss (below) claimed the cozy corner under the heat lamp.    Shearing and  first lambs, all in one day.  Now, this is beginning to feel like April.

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copyright 2008, Barbara Parry, Foxfire Fiber & Designs.  All rights reserved.

http://www.foxfirefiber.com

Six inches of fresh snow on Friday.  Although the calendar says spring, clearly winter hasn’t released its hold on New England.   Ordinarily winter is a season I enjoy.  This year’s impressive (record-breaking) snowfall amounts dampened my enthusiasm, however.  While I hope we have seen the last snow of the season, I’m taking this chance to share some scenes and observations from earlier this winter.

On days when the sheep were reluctant to leave the barn, feeding hay on fresh snow was one way to get them outside for some exercise.   Sheep love chasing a toboggan full of hay.  I was able to feed them outside until an ice storm in February put a nasty glaze on all surfaces.  Walking the fields became impossible and the sheep were then fed indoors.

The above was taken during one of the early storms, back in November.  The Leicesters were still up in the high pasture, so I had to truck hay and water up the hill.

Frozen water buckets, gates that wouldn’t open, barn doors that wouldn’t close properly, never-ending shoveling and plowing . . . it’s amazing really that I haven’t relocated the flock to Florida.

Even with its hard edges, there were moments of rare beauty that seemed to make up for the punishing weather.

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copyright 2008, Barbara Parry, all rights reserved. 

It all starts here . . .

Shearing day marks a new beginning at the farm each year.  On the heels of winter, our shearer Andy Rice arrives in the morning, clippers ready to relieve the sheep of the heavy fleeces they’ve been wearing all year long.  Ten to twelve pounds of wool covers the back of each animal and some can barely see through the wooly top knots that have grown down over their faces.

A seasoned crew arrives to help.  The procession to the shearing barn is a bit like a parade, minus the floats, with our llama Crackerjack serving as Grand Marshall.  Excited to be GOING SOMEWHERE, the flock follows closely behind.

Here’s a look at what happens next . . .

First, we de-frock the flock.

Next, the sheep spa pedicure.

The girls wait patiently. . .

for a new coif.

Only the wool grown under the blanket goes into the bag.

Leaving the shearing board with a svelte new silhouette, a ewe has instantly dropped one coat size.

Shearing now, with lambing just around the corner, makes sense for
several reasons.  Newborn lambs have a much easier time navigating if
they don’t have to nose their way through a five
inch blanket of wool to find their first meal.  Newly shorn ewes are
instinctively more
sensitive to barn temperature and protective of their little ones.
Since
lactation can sometimes cause a wool break, it’s best to shear before
the lambs arrive, which won’t be far from now.  .  .  Stay tuned!

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copyright 2008, Barbara Parry, all rights reserved.   Photography by Ben Barnhart.