My Little Nubs

I love animals and taking care of them. I wanted a monkey when I was little. I thought I wanted to be a zoo keeper as a little girl. Then I married a sheep farmer almost 3 years ago. Awesome!! I just got 44 new pets!!
Raising livestock is a foreign concept for me. What? They *aren't* pets? and you don't get personally attached to them?  and you SELL them and not think twice about it. What is this? A business? Well, yes, Robyn, it is.

The last 3 years I've learned a lot about sheep. I still have a lot to learn.  I'd never heard the term "lambing" before. It's just like calving, like cows do, have calves,but we're having lambs. The first year I was completely memorized. My husband and his dad know each of these sheep like they are their children (minus the personal attachment...sigh). They all have descriptive names: Grandma: she's 22 and has probably had at least 65 babies. Tomahawk: has a mohawk; Peg leg: self explanatory; Jack: because he's the smallest lamb ever seen by the 2 guys and there's a little person in the town nearby named Jack; Burnheide Not Burnheide Burnheide: an ongoing conflict that this sheep was not purchased from the Burnheide herd but according to my husband, his dad is wrong, and yes, was bought from that herd.  I can't tell any of them apart except for Grandma and Tomahawk.

Year one I watched and soaked it all in. Didn't want to participate yet. I'm used to humans pushing out babies. Animals expelling their offspring is a little different. Year two: I started doing chores during lambing season. This is hard freakin' work. Pulling hay off bales with a pitch fork is grueling work (for me). You have to know the amount to spread out for the non-delivered moms so they get the right poundage of hay daily. I still have to have Grandpa do the first round, then I know how much to throw. Filling water bins: I'm a pro at. Fist bump.

Finally last year I went head first in helping. I wanted to seek approval from Grandpa that I could do this. I still watched deliveries, but started getting more involved. I learned when the lambs come out, they are covered with goo. You have to quickly get the snotty thick mucous off their face, primarily their noses so they can breathe. Pull downward on the snout/nose to pull it out. Then you wipe it off their ears. Make sure they aren't still inside the placenta because they can't breathe in a bag. This is all bare handed by the way. You wear gloves for chores and checking them because generally it's colder than crap out, but once the action starts, the gloves come off. You want the mom to bond with the lamb quickly. Most often they always do. Mom sniffs the lamb, then starts licking all the goo off the rest of the lamb's body. This stimulates the lambs and begins the bond. Sometimes the lambs don't respond right away. Option to get them more responsive: pick them up and drop them back on the ground. areyoukiddingme?? Nope. That's what you do. Gets them a little more awake and with it. WELL DUH. The mom baa's, the baby baa's, and the bond is made. This communication lasts a lifetime. That's how they find each when the whole herd of moms and babies are together. The mom bellars, baby hears the mom, baby bellers back and finds her. It's quite an amazing thing to watch.

We breed sheep that have genetics of delivering multiple lambs. I fail in knowing the breed though. He's told me, I just don't remember that sort of thing. We rarely just have one lamb from a mom (called a singleton), it's usually twins or triplets or quads. I'll never forget the first time I was on for primary duty watching and checking every 2 hours. I was there *by myself* holy crap. Please let nothing go wrong! One had a wet butt with goo coming out of her hooch so I knew it was coming soon. It's an art to know when to just sit and wait it out and let them do it on their own, or intercede and pull them out. Since I was on first post, I was really hoping this mom could pull this thing off by herself. She did awesome. Delivered triplets within an hour's time span. These were MY triplets. I watched. I wiped gooey mucous. I have declared them mine. Seriously proud moment. I could do this (well, when there wasn't complications).

She had 2 nice sized ones and one little one. I called this one Nubs. Cute little thing. Probably only 3 pounds. I knew the lambs needed colostrum right away. It's like a kick start in life. If they get latched on and get a squirt of colostrum, they will generally do really well. It's kind of like human babies though, it doesn't always come naturally.  You have to physically bring the lamb to the teat, milk some colostrum out of mom and attempt to get it aimed or sucked in by the baby. This too is an art. Hold the lamb right, don't step on the others, don't let mom step on the others, don't let mom step on you, get the milk in the mouth not on the ground,  don't fall over, pin the mom against the wall so she quits trying to knock you over. Physically taxing. Moms do not like humans squeezing their tits either. Shocker.

I got all 3 lambs to eat. One ate independently, the other 2 needed assistance. Proud mom moment again. Got my ass kicked by the mom numerous times, but goal met. Had to do Nubs to teat several times that day, but we were rolling. The other 2 did really well eating from mom on their own.

My husband came out in the morning. Booyah. Listen to what I did last night. After embellishing how my presence the night before brought new life into the world, I proceeded to strut up the hill to the barn to check on my children. Get to my kids' pen... Nubs was laying on his side. Not moving. Stuck my finger in his mouth. Ice cold. Lifted his head up, flopped down. Eyes rolled back and glazed. His whole body was cold, but he was breathing, but barely. NOOOO!!! Ran down the hill into the house and asked my husband, "How bad do they have to be before you don't try to save them?" Gave him the physical status and his response was, "Well if you want to you can try." Grabbed a tube (for my nurse friends, it was a 14 French Red Robbin straight cath), a 60cc syringe and ran back up the hill. Attempted to milk mom as fast as possible to get some colostrum. Put the tube in his mouth, into his stomach and gave the milk. I tucked him in my coat....ran back to the house...down the basement, by the fire. What the heck am I doing? I have no idea. I spent the next 5 hours warming him, moving his arms and legs (yes they have arms, not 4 legs) to get the blood moving. I cried off and on. This was so sad to me. I talked to him. I wondered why I was doing this. I should know better that I'm going to get emotional doing this. Slowly he began to perk up. Went back to mom twice to get more milk, got by butt kicked each time but dangit I'm going to save this lamb today! By the time I got him to the point of standing I was absolutely ecstatic. He started bellering when I'd talk to him. EEEEEEK. I was rockin it when he was walking in the basement. I've saved my first lamb. I. Can. Do. This. I've totally fallen in love. Grandpa will be so proud of me! I can't wait to tell people. It no longer was sad. This was AWESOME!!!

My husband came down to check on us. Showed off my little Nubs. I was gloating. He was impressed. He told me he used to be the same way: tried to save them all but got emotionally spent when ones wouldn't make it despite him trying so hard. He was emotional back then too. He's not the heroic one anymore, "It's too much work." He's right. It's very time consuming and it was hard work. I was exhausted.

I told him he should probably be fed again. He offered to bottle feed him. "Yeah, that's fine," I said, " I've only tube fed him but he's sucking on my finger now so he should do great." Got the "sheep formula" warmed and put in the Coke bottle with the big black nipple on it. He was sitting on the steps, propped Nubs up on his leg to feed. I felt like we should take a family picture. \

He started guzzling. It was way more than I had ever given him. Dang Nubs! You rock! I was just about to say, "I think you better stop and just let him process what you gave him." I didn't even get the words out. He guzzled all that milk into his lungs, drowned and just like that was dead. Limp. On his leg. OMG. I wanted to yell at my husband, "What the hell did you just do?? You killed him!!" But there's no way I could. Who knew that would happen. I could tell he was devastated. I was devastated. I grabbed Nubs and patted his sides. Burp or something like kids do! This can not be happening. I just saved this animal's life and in less than 10 seconds he is dead. I sat there holding him. Crying. I'm crying again now typing this. Sheesh. It's an animal.

I think I sat there in front of the fire with him for probably 20 minutes. This farming thing was supposed to be awesome, not suck like this. Big sigh. I learned a lot more that day.