Mamma Mia!
April 4th, 2016 · No Comments · Posted in Blog, farming
Our alpha ewe, Charlotte, was a failed mom. She’d been culled from the sheep farm where we bought her three years ago because of reproductive issues. Then she had still-born lambs two years in a row, one premature.
The vet told us we shouldn’t allow her too breed anymore or risk serious health consequences. “She’s just not good at it,” he said.
Well, we don’t have anywhere to put a ewe that can’t be bred. At a certain point in the fall, all the females join up with the rams and nature takes its course.
Only this spring my wife was really worried when it became obvious Charlotte was pregnant again. “What if she dies?”
Charlotte looked about as healthy as a ewe can look as far as I was concerned. But when she wandered off into the orchard alone recently, spending hours just lying in a heap, even I started to wonder. As a freak arctic front approached, my wife again inquired about Charlotte, who by this time had made her way to the back pasture where we couldn’t see her.
We moved all the other sheep down the hill into the main paddock. My wife went back for Charlotte. As the snow began to fly and the wind to howl, our concern grew. It needn’t have.
At the crack of dawn next morning, with a fresh coat of white on the ground and the wind still pitching a fit, I plodded out to the walk-in shelter at the far end of the paddock and there found Charlotte cleaning up a newborn lamb. Hallelujah! I quick moved her into the lambing pen–or “jug”–so she could be alone with her newborn and practically flew back to the house with the news.
I had to wait a while longer to rouse my wife. And by the time we made it back out to the paddock to visit Charlotte in the jug, lo and behold there wasn’t just the one lamb, or even a second lamb, but three lambs all standing at their mother’s side looking hale and hardy.
Charlotte had triplets. She sure made up for lost time. And boy did she prove the vet wrong.
What really impresses me is what a good mom she is. So attentive. Imagine trying to care for three at once (especially if you only have two teats). She doesn’t let those lambs out of her sight. And the babies seem to know just where to find her when they need her.
Farming with animals, you just never know what the next day is going to bring.
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