Wordless Wednesday on the Farm

End of Finn Babies for this year

Sunday, April 13th at oh my gosh it's early (read 30 minutes after midnight) was when Rachel started her lambing.  Luckily for us, Tim was out feeding Ebby her bottle when he heard a baby crying and the sound wasn't coming from the lambing jugs or the "baby and me" pen.  He stopped feeding to glance over and see Rachel mostly inside the sliding door of the llama annex with a newly birthed baby.  He gently nudged her all the way inside and closed the door behind him.  No Shetlands are going to steal these last Finns if he has anything to do with it!  He then came back in the house to give me a holler and went back out to finish bottle feeding Ebby.

The first baby was a mostly white little guy with brown markings.  He was pretty big looking and when we weighed him, we found out that he was 7 lbs (that's about the weight of Ebby now at one week old!)


The next baby presented normally for all intents and purposes, but for her front legs weren't fully stretched out in the "full Superman" position that I'm most comfortable with.  I could reach in and feel the right leg bent back just a bit and wiggled it forward.  Then momma gave another great push and out came this beauty.  A girl, with amazingly beautiful markings.  Mostly black with a white head, panda bear eyes, black around her lips (like she was painted by a clown and black tips on her ears.  She also has a black spot on the top of her head, a white spot on her side (which you can see in the picture) as well as stripes of white on the bottom of her legs.  This picture just doesn't do her justice. She weighed in at 6 lbs.

Tim was pooped, so he went to bed and I stayed out for another hour waiting to see if she'd give us triplets.  No more babies came along, and truthfully, I was only expecting twins, but keep in mind I wasn't expecting quads from Love either!

They were moved to a lambing jug and are doing exceptionally well.

And so passes the end of the birthing of Finn babies for the year.  May the Shetlands be ever so fruitful and ever so kind in doling them out so evenly spaced as the Finns did, where there was only once when we needed two lambing jugs erected (only because Helle stole one of Love's lambs).

My best guess is that Viveka will pop next.  What do you think??

Lumi's Lambs and Chicks = Busy Day

On Thursday, April 10th Lumi shared with us the question of how many lambs she was carrying in her 54 inch circumference body.  Here's the shot of what she looked like prior to lambing.

Her first lamb came breech as I saw a hoof and a tail.  By the time I came back from the house with some lube to see which foot was showing, she had already birthed the first lamb.  A cute little ram.

Second lamb came an hour later with a proper presentation and turned out to be a cute little ewe.

Third lamb came about 10 minutes later ... another girl.  I waited a few hours later before I realized that she didn't have any more lambs in her.  Three babies for that large a body.  What a crazy thing.

That same morning, I found out that our chicks we ordered from the feed store were ready to be picked up.  I let Tim know and on his way home from work he brought these cuties along.  My friend, Susie, was here to see the lambs and saw Tim bringing home chicks.  Her comment was priceless saying that some husbands bring home flowers or chocolates but she liked that Tim brought home baby chicks.  We got 18 Black Australorps.  Here they are in their new brooding area, yes it's a kiddie pool with window screening binder clipped to the pool.

First Lambs of 2014

Sunday, April 6th was quite the busy day.  Love Potion #9, one of our Finns, decided it was time to give birth.  This is what she looked like before she gave birth.

She didn't look overly large, so didn't bother measuring her like we did with Lumi and Viveka.

She lambed her babies all on her own and so at 7:25ish in the morning, when Tim went out to do morning chores, he was alerted to that fact by Jack, our Border Collie, who sniffed in the air and immediately ran to the sheep pen.  Sure enough, there she was a few feet in where Tim couldn't see what Jack sniffed from the front steps.  She had two ram lambs with her and a stillborn ewe.

 He immediately called for me and I went in to see if anyone else had lambed.  As soon as I walked into the barn I saw Helle with a black ewe lamb (she wasn't pregnant), so I did a double-take and went to see if anyone else had given birth earlier in the morning.

Nobody else had lambed so it was obvious that this additional lamb belonged to Love as well.  That made a total of 4 lambs in a not so overly large body.  Unfortunately, since Helle stole the black ewe lamb, Love wouldn't accept her back.  Since Helle isn't pregnant or even lactating, I've got my first bottle baby.  I've nicknamed her Ebony and call her "Ebby" for short.  She readily accepts the bottle and is a voracious eater.

We are now very nervously awaiting how many reside in this 54 inch diameter body!  Update:  Since I was having trouble posting this until now, please note that there will be another blog post as Lumi has lambed her babies on Thursday, April 10th.