2009 Lambing Season

Here at Thorne Farm we know that lambing time is just around the corner when Kevin Ford arrives to shear our sheep. For a number of reasons, we like to have the girls sheared before lambing starts. This year, shearing day was on Saturday, February 21. Several friends attended our shearing day open house and helped skirt fleeces. A couple of fleeces were sold to spinners "right off the sheep’s back", while another one was set aside for a customer who had reserved it after buying some of the wool at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival last year.

Once shearing is over, we sit back and await the arrival of the first lambs. The ewes are penned up in the barn each night, which makes checking for signs of labor much easier. Greg checks the barn before he goes to bed around midnight and again at 4:30 am. This year’s first arrivals were a set of twins (a ram and a ewe) born to "Silly Sarah" on the afternoon of March 12. "Lady" had twin ram lambs around 5:00 am on March 15, while "Black Louise" had a humongous 14 pound single ram lamb around bedtime on March 20. (No points for creativity here - Black Louise and her twin sister White Louise were named after their mother, Louise.) "Rosemary" had twin ewe lambs ten days later on the evening of March 31. All four ewes to lamb so far were our natural colored ewes, and all had black lambs.

Then we waited, and waited, and waited for the last two ewes to lamb – our two white ewes, "Dizzy Lizzy" and "White Louise". At the 4:30 am barn check on the morning of April 18, Greg reported that Dizzy was acting, umm, dizzy – off her feed and restless, all signs of early labor. There was a little mucousy discharge, but she never really seemed to get down to pushing. We monitored her throughout the day (I spent a couple of hours just sitting with her and watching) and eventually decided that something was not right. Time for my best James Herriot impression. What I found was a large set of tangled triplets. I pulled the first one, a white ewe lamb presented with a head and one foot forward, without too much difficulty. The second unfortunately was born dead – breech birth and stuck like a cork in a bottle. The third was presented with the head back, our least favorite presentation. By that time, I was too worn out to pull any more (imagine how Dizzy must have felt!) so Greg took over once I got the front feet out. Somehow, with a lot of heaving and ho-ing, we safely delivered a black ram lamb. When we finally got Dizzy and her two lambs tucked into their lambing pen, we realized it had been a while since we had seen White Louise. Finally located her – she had gone off to another barn all by herself and delivered a set of twin white ewe lambs!

Now the oldest lambs are just over two months old and the youngest will be a month old tomorrow. All are growing by leaps and bounds, and we are glad to have another lambing season behind us!

Kris