A Lovely Little Ewe Lamb

Dot was our last Ewe this year to lamb. Her sister had gone the Saturday before her. I noticed she had some discharge and knew she was in labor. Last year all three of our Ewes were experienced birthers and all the lambs were born without a hitch. If you read my blog, "Lambing" you know that I had to assist Yarrow as her lamb was coming out rear first and the process was going on for a while. With Dot, it was similar. She also was a first time mama and she seemed to be struggling a bit. The difference, though was the lambs presentation. Dot had been laboring at least an hour from when I first noticed her discharge to when a tiny face began to emerge. She was up and down, bearing down while she was lying on the ground. She was a bit more vocal than Yarrow and more tense. I figured that along with the face there might be some hooves and I would approach her to see if I could grab onto the front legs. Dot did not like me so close to her and got up and walked away from me. With Yarrow, Ty was out of town, but he was here this time. I asked him to catch Dot so I could help assist her. It worked last time so why not again? It may have been to0 hasty to jump in at this time. I was able to help ease the emerging lamb out by finding those hooves and gently sliding them through. The aftermath of this process is what had us second guessing our involvement. Dot was not happy about being caught and held in place. I tried to get the lamb up to her face so she could start to lick and clean her, but she bolted away from us and from her new little ewe. We stood back for a while to see if she would go back to her lamb. She seemed interested in the baby, but would retreat back to where her sister, Dahlia was. It seems we had added to her stress by our "helping" and she was rejecting her little lamb. The natural process of lambing was interrupted and Dot associated the lamb with her distress. Lesson learned. The saying came back to me, "just because you can, doesn't mean you should." I should have waited the process out to see if Dot could continue without my interference. Dot's ewe, Maple is now in with some bottle lambs and getting fed goats milk. We read that many people will isolate their first time Ewes prior to lambing in case extra help is needed. Unfortunately we were not set up for that, but next year we might do things differently. :)