Tag Archives: Aisling

Chickens, Dogs, Farm, Morning, Saturday, Shetland Sheep

The Rooster Crows

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A lot of cackling and crowing near 5ish.  I typically love it.  This morning my head is migraine-y and so I’m not as happy about not being able to fall back to sleep.

I walk downstairs with a spill of dogs underfoot.  I feel like I’m caught in a sluice-way when I wake up and imagine that someday when I’m less nimble, I’ll end up in a heap with several pairs of soulful eyes imploring me to arise and get them some breakfast.  I automatically open the front door and we pour out onto the porch where we collect metal dishes, back inside to be greeted by baa-ing and then to the bin to scoop food into 3 bowls.  Meanwhile, 3 cats alight onto the counter, inviting me to throw a little kibble their way.  Back out onto the porch we go, doing the breakfast dance and I slip back into the house for a minor triumph of “6 down, so many more to go.”  I then warm up some goat’s milk in a pan and funnel it into a bottle for Aisling, the bottle lamb.  She delicately skitters about, occasionally bleating, until I lean to serve her a warm and yummy morning brew.

I try to put the kettle on for my own cuppa in and around this.  By the time I’ve made a bottle, the water is boiling and I let my morning tea steep.

I’ve got this down in 10 minutes or less.  The rest of the chores take me an hour or more, depending on the to-do list, and then I’m ready to start the day.

Happy Saturday, folks!

Ginny & Aisling discussing their morning plans

Farm, Lambing, Photographs, Seasons, Shetland Sheep, Vermont Sheep and Goat Association

From 12 – 22: The Flock Grows: Ready to Relax, Chapter 4

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It’s time to finish telling about the last 5 lambs born at the farm since I had digressed and spent a chapter on Aisling, the bottle lamb:

Ruva, big as a house, twinned on Sunday, April 1st  at the end of the day.  Bless her heart, her deliveries were uneventful and we had her ram lambs’ cords trimmed and iodined by 10 p.m..  This made for a much better night’s sleep for me, because by then the stresses of the rejected lambs and bottle lambs and all that jazz had me pretty worn out.  Ruva is a veteran, having twinned in the past as well as having single lambs, so she knew what she was doing when it came to nursing and caring for her boys. We named her two guys “Romulus” and “Remus” and they are nearly identical, except that Remus is slightly smaller.  Their fleeces are not quite chocolate-y, which would be called “Dark Moorit“, but a warm tone between fawn and dark reddish-brown called “Moorit.”

Ruva with Romulus & Remus

April 2nd, a Monday, was a day off in lambing.  And thank God because I was ready for it.

Tuesday, April 3rd, Lily gave birth to twins at dusk.  We’d already moved most of the ewes and their lambs into private or semi-private quarters, so Lily was sharing a stall with Winky when she lambed.  I thought, actually, it was a good lesson for Winky as she was the last ewe left to lamb.  Lily had ram lambs which we named Albus and Hagrid.  They are darn cute!  Albus has  a Moorit-colored fleece with white sideburns and a beard.  He is the picture of wisdom, in a lamb, that is!  Hagrid, named for the friendly half-giant in Harry Potter’s world, is just that.  He is a lumbering, friendly bearded Moorit, very much loving to cuddle whenever you are with him.  Well done, Lily, well done!  Two beautiful healthy boys, and she delivered without a hitch.

Lily with Hagrid & Albus

Now we’re up to 9 lambs, 21 sheep all together.  All in 5 days time.

Char & Aisling - good times in the front yard!

By now the bottle feedings for Aisling were working out, the nursing of the reject/orphan lamb Oliver were working out, and all of the other moms were tending to their newborns uneventfully.  I had put Winky, my teen-pregnancy candidate, into her own “lambing jug” so that if she were to lamb, she would not be able to risk bonding with it because she would basically be on top of him or her in such small quarters.

After a few days, I thought maybe she was just fat and I’d misjudged her all along.  So I put her out to graze with the flock of wethers and her fellow-yearling ewes.

On Easter Sunday, we were bringing in the flock, and who do you think had a tiny sidekick, brand new, wet and mewing by her side?  Yes, Winky!  She birthed “Bunny” right in the sheep-chute in the cool grass in the pink light of the late day sun.  ”Bunny” is kind of a cheesy name, I know, but my husband suggested it and for all of the work he does around here, I felt like I should at least humor him.  Char and I were thinking along the lines of “Pascha”, or some-such clever variation on Easter/Passover, but after a few days, “Bunny” stuck because, gosh darn it, her round, innocent face is definitely bunny-cute and her coloring is a lovely Musket with Katmioget markings.

Just this morning, I wethered (that means “neutered”) 8 ram lambs.  Can you say traumatic?  I’m pretty beat and need a shower, yes, but it is done and they are all being comforted by their mamas.  And I won’t have to worry about placing any rams in homes, or being over-run by in-breeding or managing (poor) behaviors by having 8 rams here on the farm.

And boom!  There are 10 little lambs here now, along with the 12 other yearling and older sheep.  It is a baa-fest when you go out in the morning to put everyone out for the day – you almost want earplugs!  But when they are out to pasture it takes some serious self-discipline to tear yourself away from the cuteness-overload that is going on.  I encourage all of my friends with little ones, or any animal lovers, to come and visit the farm now while the cavorting and gamboling babies provide what we call “lamb-t.v.”  And if you can’t get here from where you are, do enjoy the following photo collage:

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Farm, Lambing

From 12 – 22: The Flock Grows: Bottle Baby, Chapter 3

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"I'm going to feed my father's flock,
His young and tender lambs
That over hill and over dales
Lie waiting for their dams."
-"Searching for lambs", English Folk Song

When I left off yesterday, the count of lambs was 5, right?  Maggie had kidnapped Nikki’s twin, and then Maggie had rejected one of her own twins.  Meanwhile Nikki & Pansy had one little ram lamb apiece to nurse and Maggie had 2, leaving one more(Aisling) for us to connect with a wet-nurse.

We did, indeed, manage to get Aisling some feedings off of Maggie.  But it only happened by either stanchioning Maggie, in which she still made great attempts to step on or kick her little one out-of-the-way, or by sitting on her, practically, and putting her in a hold so that she couldn’t move away while Aisling latched on for a feeding.

Stanchioning and sitting on Maggie couldn't help Aisling to score a decent meal! Char and friend Tristan try to help by holding Oliver and Seamus out-of-the-way.

The feedings were inconsistent and brief.  We needed to get that little girl some sustenance because by the end of the second day, she had really started to show the signs of waning energy that told me it would become serious, fast, if we didn’t put her on a supplement.  I picked her up to take her out of the stall altogether to figure things out and Maggie started bleating her head off.  Surprised that she was at all interested in her baby, I came back into the stall.  She dashed over to inspect that Aisling was o.k., so I put Aisling down on the ground for her.  Aisling immediately went to suckling and Maggie fussed over her as though she was the returned prodigal daughter.  After a few minutes, Maggie had a change of heart and decided to butt her out-of-the-way, out of her sight.

How tragic it is to watch this sort of mental and physical abuse unfold, especially when you’re talking about a 2 day old lamb.  It was heart breaking.  But we decided to start these “stress” feedings with Aisling if it would help get her some nutrition, not sure if the calories lost in the stress of being removed, then being reunited, then being butted was worth the number of calories and colostrum she would consume when she did latch on.

After about 6 hours of this, we decided no, enough, and brought her into the house.

snuggling with the rescue lamb

The first night was a little rough for me, with feeding her every two hours, being peed on in bed, and me fighting the flu, but Aisling responded nearly instantly to the nurturing.  She curled up right under my chin whenever she wasn’t awake and her tiny wooly self breathed so steadily and deeply…it was like a little angel body next to me.

So now we have a bottle baby, in the house, and I’m not sure my husband is down with it, but it is what it is.  We’ll figure out what to do with her eventually.  Her days are fabulously filled now with outings to Char’s school, frolicking out on the lawn, and visiting her brothers in her old stall.  When she goes in for playtime, they greet her enthusiastically and everyone jumps around like they’re a lamb or something.  Maggie still likes to butt her away if she gets too close, but she’s learned to keep her distance mostly.  When I bring her into the house, she enjoys running around and greeting the cats and dogs and ‘baaaas’ when she sees me with her bottle.

Daughter Sarah Jane, home for her birthday weekend and Easter, helped with the midnight, 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. feedings so that Farmer Tam could get some much-needed sleep.

Night feedings have stopped in that little bit of time.  She tucks in at around 11 and is good until 6a.m..  Jim brought home diapers last night, which fit her fabulously after we cut a slit in them for her tail to peek out, and that helps.  I think they look ridiculous, but it is definitely helping to save on clean-up.  Charlotte and I have to travel in the upcoming week and I wasn’t sure what we’d do with Aisling, but my brother-in-law volunteered to help out and so, bless his heart, I don’t think he needs to have his house trashed by lamb pee-puddles!

I think Aisling’s story warranted its own post and I will finish the other lambing stories soon.  Peace to you this day.

Back door guests are best!

 

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Farm, Health, Lambing, Shetland Sheep, Vermont Sheep and Goat Association

From 12 – Twenty-TWO: The Flock Grows, Chapter 2

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This post starts with a note:  the lambing series was originally named “From 12 – 21:  The Flock Grows”, but I have had to update the title.  If these types of farm goings-ons interest you at all, stay tuned for the last lamb in a very-near-future post.  If it all just sounds too mundane and confusing, come on back to the farm after the lamb updates and we’ll bring you other farm and family tales!

To resume…

Last I’d left off, nearly a week ago, the report from the farm was about the twin ram lambs that Nikki brought into the world.  Dickens and Oliver are now a week and 3 days old and have been getting good round the clock feedings from their birth mama and adopted mama.  There were some exasperating hours in and around the first 2 days of their lives and I am happy it is now just a memory.

Char, trying to get Oliver to take a bottle while Maggie, the dry-but-doting granny-nanny, looks on. Note the Red Sox pajama bottoms that are all the rage in barn-wear during the week of Opening Day at Fenway Park :-)

At night checks on the Friday evening that Dickens and Oliver joined us, March 30th, Jim hurried me out of the house to see Pansy finishing up with delivering her first-born, a ram lamb we named ‘Tolkien.’  Pansy and Nikki are twins, as you may remember from previous sheep posts, and so we thought it fitting that in their first year of lambing they decided to birth their babies on the same day.

Pansy and her new ram lamb, 'Tolkien'

The next day, Saturday, Char and I reclaimed some strong iron sheep panels which had been reinforcing areas of fencing weakened by last year’s athletic jumping sheep and we turned a horse stall into a very posh lambing nursery.  We cleaned all of the bedding out of the large sheep stall, the old goat stall and the lambing jug as well.  We paused in the afternoon to “Bowl for Kids’ Sake” with my youth group to raise money for the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program.  It is not necessarily relevant to this story that I happened to be on fire for that day’s bowling, but I can’t help but toot my own horn.  I think the improvement in my bowling is directly related to hauling bales of hay, grain, water buckets and shoveling manure.  Hidden benefits of chores.

Farmer Tam, bowling strikes!

And my youth group had a jolly time helping to make a difference in Bennington County.

Maggie & Oliver, Nikki & Dickens(out of view) and Pansy & Tolkien in the Nursery which Char & I designed and built using reclaimed sheep panels.

That evening, Char & I happened to be in the stall with Maggie when she began laboring, around 11 p.m..  By midnight Maggie had given birth to “Aisling“,(pronounced ASH-ling, Irish, and meaning ‘a dream or vision’), who was quite large compared to the other 3 lambs that were a full day older than she.  She was covered with a very yellowish birth sac which I’d not noticed with lambing in the past.  Maggie set to work right away grooming her all over and she nursed, hallelujah, nearly immediately after birth.

The moment of truth was on us – would Maggie now reject Oliver?  Or would she keep him on, especially now that we knew that she had a milk supply of her own to be counted on.

She did not reject him.  Phew!

An hour later, between 1 and 2 a.m., Maggie birthed Aisling’s twin, Seamus.  Oh my goodness!  He was absolutely runt-y compared to Aisling and just beautiful.

Maggie licks Seamus all over, just after lambing. Aisling is still yellow-ish from the birth sac membrane that is stuck to her wool. Notice how much larger she is than her twin, born just one hour later.

The moment of truth was upon us again.  Would she reject Oliver now?

She did not reject him!  Phew, again!  But, Maggie did decide to reject Aisling.  It only took about one hour for her to make that call after she’d delivered Seamus.  Char and I were confounded and troubled when we finally went to bed at somewhere near 3a.m. on April Fools Day.

I called in sick (with the flu) to church the next morning, where I teach a Sunday School class and sing in a choir, and began the day at 5:30 a.m. trying to figure out how to get Aisling the much-needed colostrum and feedings that I had been trying to get for Oliver only one day prior.  I had that “deja vu all over again” feeling…

Shetland lambs: Maggie nursing Seamus, a Katmoget ram lamb, Aisling, a Mioget ewe lamb, and adopted Oliver, a Moorit ram lamb

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