So Close

So close...to being done lambing!  Ultrasounded the last 6 today and there are 3 pregnant, 3 open.

US machine on makeshift table

So close...to wrecking the vet truck on a not-so-fun farm call:

A little slippery

No one was home, so the neighbor had to come pull us out with the tractor.  Meanwhile, someone from the clinic showed up with the dart gun so we could catch the wild cow who was pawing and even charging at us in the pen.  I managed to squirt xylazine (sedation) into my own eyes, so while my eyes were watery and blurry and I waited to see if I'd pass out, my assistant tried shooting the dart gun.  She glanced the first one off the cow and xylazine sprayed everywhere, guess we didn't pressurize the pneumatic gun enough.  The second time she literally hit the broad side of a barn and buried the dart within the wood.  Then the helper who brought the gun gave it a whirl and sank a dart cleanly in the side of the cow as she charged head first at the barrel.

After two more rounds of xylazine, the cow chose to lie down in the absolute worst spot in the pen.  She did a freaking headstand in the corner, all 1000# of her pointed downhill.  She was trying to die because she couldn't breathe with her neck kinked all the way back and UNDERNEATH her own self...so I hustled to administer the epidural and put her vaginal prolapse back in.  Now it was time to get her up.  Ummm?

Had plenty of reversal, but didn't have access to either jugular vein.  Found a poor excuse for a milk vein, got a little in before she kicked me a good one, then readjusted herself to lie on top of her milk vein.  I ended up putting more volume of drug than I ever thought possible in the tail vein, and she was back to her wild-eyed and pissed-off self...but still very stuck.

The only option was to pivot her hind end so that all her weight wasn't facing directly downhill and into the corner.  Of course she was completely lying on her down leg.  With great effort and a moment of Tourette's, I managed to slip some ropes under that leg, hobble it to the other leg, and attach it to the truck.  I hopped in the cab, worried that the "pop" I heard/felt was her hip coming out of joint (her options were to get out of that spot or die there), and continued to give it some gas til I snapped the rope.  Luckily she was repositioned enough for us to remove the halter, untie her legs in between violent kicks, and run back in the truck as she got up MAD.

And this is the story of the 3-hour vaginal prolapse.  Funny it only took all of 5 minutes to deal with the actual prolapse...

Maternal Failure?

Rogue lamb was really testing my patience.

And Rae's, too

Yep, that's her angry mom on the other side

The last straw came when I looked out my bedroom window to see her on the road trying to get hit by a pickup.

Same song, different verse

A second round of fence-repairs seems to have done the trick, as she's remained INSIDE for 3 days straight!

I had a first-time mom cause me numerous headaches.  One day I came home from work to find newborn twins left in my burn pile (which is approximately the size of a singlewide).  They were weak but up and moving and screaming for mom, birth fluids dried to their wool as they'd never even been licked clean.

I found the yearling out running with the flock, not in the least concerned about her new babies.  With some work I managed to get the new family up to the barn and in a jug, but she had some serious hatred of the lambs.  She ran from them, kicked them, butted them, and offered the same toward me.  After ensuring her udder was not mastitic, I restrained her to allow them to nurse, offered her some water and hay and let them chill out.  Every time I went to check on her, she continued to reject the lambs who were trying desperately to nurse.  I gave her a shot of oxytocin to get the motherly hormones flowing and ended up tying her in the jug to keep her from neglecting or hurting the lambs.  First-time mothers produce lower levels of oxytocin than experienced ewes, so I was hoping the injection and the act of nursing would help the ewe bond to her lambs.

Not happy

I fed her grain to take her mind off the lambs and I supervised as each one found the udder and nursed vigorously.  But she didn't talk to them or nuzzle them, she just spazzed out and tried to get away.  I thought about giving her a little sedation but ended up just letting them be for the night.

Next day, more of the same.  I supplemented the lambs with an occasional bottle to be sure they were getting enough.  One had a weak hind leg, so I was doing a little PT when I'd go check on them all.  She was improving and continued to nurse mom and the bottle well.  As time went on, still no change in mom.  She hated me, she hated them, so eventually I gave up and took her babies from her.  More bottle babies, but oh well.

The twin ewe lambs did great the first day, then the one with the weak leg up and died on me the next day.  I went out in the morning to find her agonal, so I euthanized her.  Didn't find anything on necropsy, so I don't know what happened to her.  Maybe mom knew all along.

Still lambing

Yep, still trucking along.  Only 5 more ewes to go. 

The jugs have been quite active.

Wool yearling with ewe lamb

Ella has a new bottle baby, and she couldn't be happier.

Mama Ella

A ram lamb escaped his jug overnight and the ewe wouldn't take him back.  She only had eyes for the ewe lamb.  So I tried grafting him onto the newest mother who only had a single.  I rubbed her placenta on him, held her while he nursed, even smeared some molasses on him to encourage her to lick him.  But no...she was not to be fooled.  Original mom was almost sold on the molasses, but she still very much favored the other twin.  Bring on the bottle.

Only enough love for one baby

Ella has plenty of love to go around, but sometimes she her emotions are a bit conflicted.  She mothers the lamb and makes the other dogs go away, she plays with the lamb, and sometimes she works the lamb.

So much love

And yes, Rogue keeps getting out.  Let's compare:

Good lamb (Rogue's brother)

Bad lamb

I tried putting her in an x-pen in the barn, but she freaked out so much that she was open-mouth breathing...and I was bleeding.  Then we moved on to hobbles fashioned out of baling twine (all that I could scrounge up at the time):

Angry Rogue on the right, her twin on the left. 

Look how fat she is compared to him!

That worked for the day, but then she came in limping, so I decided to take them off.  Of course she showed no lameness or any signs of slowing when I tried to catch her.  I patched up a spot I saw her duck under the fence, thought I had the problem solved...came home the next day to find her out.  Clearly I have some more fencework to do.

Rogue Lamb

I'm beyond aggravated with this 6-week old ewe lamb:

Not me?!

Don't let her cuteness fool you: she's evil.

Apparently she just doesn't like it here.  She's gotten out each day for the last 7 days.  I go out to find the little darling on the wrong side of the fence screaming her head off, not remembering how she got out.  Now, this wouldn't be such a big deal, except that it's a huge project actually getting into the neighboring fields.  The fencing is all woven wire with barbed wire strung across the top, and there is only one gate that connects my place to the other 3 fields surrounding me.  That gate belongs to the neighbor and is wired shut.  The bottom of the gate is a good foot off the ground, so I've barricaded it with planks and rocks to keep the sheep in my field.

So in order to retrieve the escapee ewe lamb, I have to un-barricade the gate so that Rae can squeeze under, then climb over it myself.  The two of us go out to catch the lamb, which always turns into a rodeo when the lamb loses whatever itty bitty brain she had before seeing me and Rae.  As Rae brings her, she runs along the fenceline looking for an opening, frequently hurling herself at the woven wire in an attempt to squeeze through.  When that doesn't work and she sees me coming to get her, she turns around and tries to beat Rae.  It's amusing to see the little thing try like crazy to out-manuever Rae, and I can't tell you how many times she's been inside Rae's mouth.  She's so little that when Rae grips her nose, she fits the whole lamb's head into her mouth.  Somehow Rae must be using some bite inhibition, though, as the lamb has never come away with a single toothmark.

Anyway, we eventually catch the bugger and I scoop her up for the trip home.  Rae prances beside me as proud as can be while we walk back, she thinks this is the best game EVER!  Me, I think it's really getting old.  Fast.  Especially when I get home late and we're out chasing a lamb by moonlight.

Bad.

I'm not sure what I'll do about her.  I tried putting her in the barn with her mom and brother, but she got out of the cattle panels there (not that it's hard, but I figured she'd stay with her family).  She gets out of the back field.  She gets out of the front field.  No one else gets out, not even her brother.  She's just running around out there by herself, not overly concerned about being alone until it's time to put the flock up for the night.

Dog crate?  And yes, she'll be allowed to leave for good once she gets a little bigger.

A Little Fetal Stress

Never hurt anyone?



No, that's not mine, it's a picture from an Idaho sheep station I helped lamb at 2 years ago.  The lamb is yellow because it's covered in meconium (fetal poop).  Stress to the fetus such as that caused by oxygen deprivation causes the baby whatever to poop in utero.  When attending a birthing and you see yellow fluid coming out of the mother, you often worry that the baby is dying or already has died.

So I had a calving call two days ago, and when I reached in I felt a breech (butt only, no legs in the birth canal).  Like so:

Integrated Livestock Management - Colorado State U

A breech is an emergency, the calf can't be born that way.  The legs need to be brought in the birth canal.  Even if the legs are naturally presented in the birth canal, the delivery of a backward calf is often too slow to allow for calf survival.  The umbilical cord breaks or pinches off while the head is still inside the cow.  In a calf that's coming forward, the head engaging the cervix allows for proper dilation and a timely delivery.  Even if the umbilical cord breaks before the calf has been expelled, the head is out and the calf can breathe on it's own.

OK, in my mind I'm thinking: not good.  After feeling the breech, the second thing I noted was that the amniotic sac had not yet ruptured, so I poked it with my finger to allow for manipulation of the calf.  You can't grab onto something that's inside a bubble of fluid, so breaking the sac let me get my hands on the calf. 

That's when yellow spewed out.

Very not good.

It took a bit of work, but I finally got it corrected with 2 back legs in the birth canal, ready to come out.  This is what I was covered in by the time I had calf-pulling chains around each leg:

Picture this, but head to toe.  Yes, even on my face...

a lot of good stuff happens at my face-level.

Together with a farm hand we pulled the calf out, yellow as can be.  When it hit the ground I knelt down to check it over, and the little bugger almost kicked me in the gut!  A vigorous heifer calf who beat the odds :)

It might not seem like much, but this made my entire week!  Sure it was luck, but it made me feel good that I could help out.  I wish they all were happy endings.

Changes

Tried changing some things about the blog. Didn't put much effort into it, but it'll do for now.

Got a new camera, we are still trying to figure each other out.

On the farm, Gabe has become a one-man lambing crew. He is LOVING lambing. Yeah, it's super-annoying that my ewes are popping them out at an average of 1/week, but that means there's always fresh moms/babies for Gabe to break.

"I'm on it!"

Using him for chores has affected our training for precision work. I'd hoped to be trialing him by now, but I came to the realization that the experience he's getting on the farm far outweighs cranking on him to get into trial-shape. Letting go of a trial timeline has been the best thing for us. No more pressure. We are both happy and he's working better than ever! I'm so excited about him! Since Rae isn't used much for chores, her new job has become my photography subject. It's much easier to practice shooting working photos of a completely trained, strong-eyed dog than an eager and loose-eyed youngster!

Ella is still Ella, and Livy is still in OH.