More Newborns

On Saturday, the second early lambing sheep gave birth to two huge lambs. They are all well but the second of the two lambs came out neck-first! Not the easiest of positions for the sheep but it came out in the end :)

What good news!  Congratulations to Mum and the big babies, and to Howard and Lynda.  Pass the champagne!

Helen

            Oh,Thats great news,hope the vet didn't need to be called for the birthing.

              I hope it was during the day and Howard,Lynda and Ben got some rest

                           and I am happy that the birthing went well.

Congratulations on the new lambs.

Best Wishes to you all

Fi x

Great news to hear that two more healthy lambs have arrived at Marlfield Farm. Hope the mother has recovered after the

difficult birth and the lambs are enjoying themselves. Look forward to watching their antics when the weather is warm

enough for them to be outside in the field.

Congratulations on the birth of the two new lambs.  I'm glad to hear that everything went well...

Great news! I've been waiting for more birth announcements.

Congratulations to all on the healthy arrival of the lambs.

Stephanie

No more countdown on the home page. Does this mean more lambs have arrived?

the " countdown" has stopped because we have now got to the main part of our lambing season where the bulk of our flock are due to lamb. So far we have had a single lamb born today... Mother and bay doing well :)

that should read " baby" !!

Congratulations to you all.

Looking forward to hearing of lots more successful births

Love to all

I was wondering what the countdown was for. Good to hear some more lambs will be bouncing around the fields soon :)

I had the feeling that you may be busy.

Hope all the births go well and that all of you (humans and sheep) can get rest.

Stephanie

Great news to hear of a new lamb having been born with both mum and baby doing well.  I hope all the other sheep have safe deliveries and not too many in the middle of the night.. :) 

That is wonderful news.  May all the other "deliveries" go as well.  Try to get some rest in between the births, and take care of yourselves as you go through this busy season.

No news this morning... all is quiet

Good to hear the news today about the two new healthy lambs... :)  

Wonderful news about the two new lambs.  May all the rest be as healthy.  Take care of yourselves!

Lynda at LambWatch HQ (01 Apr 2010 10:53):
no more new arrivals

Lynda at LambWatch HQ (01 Apr 2010 10:53):
Thats because their mum is a bit short on milk and I may have to do a bit of "topping up" with a bottle

Lynda at LambWatch HQ (01 Apr 2010 10:52):
well it seems all our prayers have been answered ! The two sets of twins look fine. Today we have let them out into the fields. One set is in the LW field but I doubt whether they will come nearer the cam til this awful wind changes direction and lessens. It is too exposed at the moment up this end of the field. The other set of twins are in another field as we still need to watch them closely

 at LambWatch HQ (03 Apr 2010 09:34):
we have had another two sets of twins in the night and they look ok so far and there is another sheep in the early stages of producing.... must go

Lynda at LambWatch HQ (03 Apr 2010 09:33):
hi.. just to let you know that all my efforts yesterday with the sick lamb in the kitchen proved useless.... this morning we got up and it was strangely quiet in the kitchen and it had died. Not overly surprised beacause it wouldnt suck properly yesterday

On closer inspection of one of the first lambs that suddenly died, and having discovered that lambs actually have four stomachs, it appeared that the cause of its death was that the milk did not make it past the first stomach. Consequently it all built up in the first stomach, no nutrients were digested so it deed. Tell-tale signs of this happening are a bloated chest area and a hollow stomach area.

The vet said this is not a common malformation and that nothing could have been done to save it anyway. We are very careful now, looking out for these tell-tale signs on any new born lambs.

It is a continuing worry on top of the ordinary work load of lambing and we have had considerably more than the average loss of lambs this year and it is getting us all down somewhat. There is currently one lamb that is showing signs of this strange problem... it is alive at the moment but it will probably be deed by morning.

We have given it penicillin, a special stuff that the vet said may help, but it is stiff, has a bloated chest, and is making pathetic bleats (when it does). There is also another lamb which is a bit stiff but not bloaty yet.

oh no thats so sad.

My thoughts are with you all and I wish I could do something to help.

Fi :(

Dan, that is indeed sad news and quite frightening.  We will just have to keep praying.  All of us lambwatchers are with you in spirit and thinking of you minute by minute.

Helen.

It is so sad to see these beautiful creatures die so soon after birth and I fully realise the stress that it will cause to all at the farm who work so hard throughout the year. Could the malformation be anything to do with the genes of the tup as all the earlier lambs who were fathered by the old tup seem to be fit and well.  I hope and pray that things will improve and that your heart break will be mended by the birth of healthy strong lambs.

THanks for the kind words. In the night one of the prolapsed sheep lambed with success as did another which we named "Pincher" because, prior to it lambing, it was constantly trying to pinch other mothers' lambs. So far these lambs look OK but we aren't counting chickens til they are a good few weeks old!

The lamb that had a bloated chest is still so. There is no evidence of the mother having beeen sucked and the lamb's backside is still clean as the day it was born so we think its days are numbered. Because the sheep isnt being sucked, we are having to manually strip out its milk as its bag is getting huge. This is a pretty labourious task but needs doing. Even though it will probably die, we will be giving the lamb another injection of this stuff that the vet gave us but it is a bit frustrating doing this when you think it will probably die anyway. Injecting it with this stuff means that at least, if it does die, we know we did everything we could.

So sorry to hear about the lambs Dan.. we are all thinking about you and hoping that the new additions survive the next few weeks.

As suspected the lamb which we thought was not getting any nutrition has died.

We will therefore now be attempting to mother on a triplet that was born today. As the triplet is quite young, the chances of a successful adoption are higher. We will be skinning the dead lamb and wrapping it around the triplet in order to try and mother it on.

The other lamb that was quite stiff yesterday seems to be doing OK.

Hi Dan,

Thanks for keeping us informed.  I am sorry to hear that the lamb has died but am delighted to know of and see the triplets.  Will she not keep going to her original mum?

Love to you all and Happy Easter

Fi xx

I thought you might try to adopt one of those triplets out to one of mums who lost her offspring.  Let's hope that is successful.  All we can do at this end is hope and pray that things will go well, as you all work so hard to keep babies alive.

Helen