A watched sheep never "lambs".....

April is SO ready to have that lamb.  I'm SOOOO ready for her to have that lamb.  

I've been watching her closely since a week ago.  She started showing signs, acting bewildered, kicking at her stomach, breathing heavily, pawing the ground, going into a kind of trance, seeming to have contractions.....

I put her in the little delivery pen (called a "lambing jug", for whatever reason), and all symptoms of impending birth disappeared as she forlornly called to Iris and Brock who were grazing without her.

She seemed to be having contractions while Iris gave birth.  Do sheep have sympathy labor?!!!  Iris had what seemed (to me) to be a miserable time giving birth.  It was painful for me to watch our little ewe Iris in such pain.....  But it was over and done with and a little lamb was born fairly quickly.   For first-time farmers who have to observe a birth, it wasn't complicated or frustrating, just.....normal (and fascinating!)  That was 2 days ago.  

April gazes curiously at Iris' little guy.  She acts as though she would like to have one of her own.  So what's stopping her?!!!

I have spent hours observing her, checking out the size of her growing udder, watching her sides heave to see if it's contractions, looking at the changes of her back end (yes, I've become a livestock butt-watcher...which you can't avoid if you want to be a good animal caretaker, I've come to realize!)

Last night, I had spent over an hour watching her in the afternoon (uncomfortable, looked like contractions).  Then again after dinner (harder contractions?)  She popped up and munched some alfalfa hay and chewed her cud, all bright-eyed and curious.  I checked her again at 10.  Again at midnight.  Set my alarm for 2 hours later.  

Finally, when her beautiful face peered back at me at 2 in the morning, alert and smiling, I decided to sleep the rest of the night in my own bed, and check on her after a few hours of sleep.

And still.....we're waiting.

April is a yearling, which means she was born just over a year ago and this will be her first lamb.  She has a large frame for a Babydoll sheep, and it wasn't too early to breed her in December/January.  Some breeders would call that irresponsible, but our breeder and the vet both agreed that she was mature enough to carry a baby to term.  We took a chance that our ewes wouldn't get pregnant at all, because the timing was later than typical sheep-breeding-season.  But Jethro came to stay, and it seems that both girls cycled and got pregnant right on schedule, about 17 days later.

It shouldn't be twins, the first time around.  But it might be a really big lamb, given the size of April's sides.  Some of my obsession is unwarranted, except that it's the first time for me as well as April.  But some of it is necessary, in case.....there are lots of worst case scenarios that could happen.  I have to keep reminding myself, though, there is a BEST case scenario that is much more likely to happen.

Like with Bessie when she is due to deliver a calf, this lamb will come when I'm tired of waiting, in a daze from sleep-loss, stumbling through my day and half-heartedly clinging to the knowledge that they can't stay pregnant forever.

A watched yearling sheep never "lambs".....at least not until you scale your expectations back and your obsessions have dulled!

Well, time to check on her again.  Every hour, on the hour today, because of the size of her udder and the changes to that back end....and (like every other day since a week ago) I'm hoping for a lamb by tonight!

 

Laura

Photos for this morning

Iris and baby Patriot, cheerful little Patriot grinning for the camera, and still-expectant April eating ravenously....

 

Laura

The first Dykstra lamb

Iris had a difficult day today (Monday), we spent hours watching and waiting while also building a chicken coop and getting the house and food ready for a traditional Memorial Day picnic-style dinner, and in the end, a beautiful ram lamb was born and is doing well.  

The yellow substance coating his wool is normal for a newborn.  He is a creamy-white lamb with light cinnamon coloring on his legs and muzzle.  Just adorable.  Mama Iris did well, and the delivery was probably typical, but rather difficult to watch.  The little guy came out with one front leg bent back, so maybe the discomfort I witnessed my poor ewe going through was because of that.....  

We thought of naming him "Patriot", in honor of Memorial Day, but we'll see what his future holds....

Our other ewe, April, has gone through bouts of contractions all day today, but was happily munching grain when I closed up the barn.  Here's hoping that I can get a night's sleep before she goes into labor!  

More photos tomorrow.

 

Laura

A sheep worth noticing

Look at that first photo, and tell me what's different in the second photo.  No, not the position of the grazing sheep, or the girth of the white ewes, or the different angle of photography.....

See any resemblance between the two black sheep?  The first one is Jethro, on loan from friends since December, and daddy to the lambs that both white ewes are carrying.  The second one is Jethro's son, born at Hillbunker Farm in Woodstock, who we bought this spring to carry on the "Jethro" influence on our little property.  The second one arrived on Wednesday, when Jethro's owners came to pick him up after a successful breeding season with our ewes, April and Iris (due to give birth any day now....or hour....or minute.  I'm still waiting on those two, but it can't be long now.)

Meet "Brock", registered Babydoll Southdown ram, stunningly handsome like his father, quality breeding material for any future lambs born here.  

We are trying for "B" names this year ("Buddy" and "Bea" the guinea hogs, for example)  So we went down the list of names that begin with B, and even consulted the same book of baby names that we used for our children (gasp!)  Brock was the name I liked from the beginning, as in:  the Pokemon-trainer character, Brock, who is a girl crazy skirt-chaser and all-around flirt (the kids tell me).  But we needed to convince ourselves that it was truly the best of all the other choices.  (Yes, I know.  "Brock" will have to live with the nickname "Brock-o-li" all of his life.  No need to point that out.  He's a sheep, so his feelings will be spared and he will not grow up with an inferiority complex from excessive teasing.)

Poor Brock spent his first night here calling out "Maaa-aaa-aaa", until his little lamb voice was hoarse by morning.  I took pity on him the next day, turned him in with the ewes, who wanted absolutely nothing to do with the new little pest (they are very preoccupied with being uncomfortable and very pregnant).  They were quite taken with macho, studly Jethro, thank-you-very-much.....and their little flock was complete, at least in their sheep sized brains.

He eagerly ran to their side, and they promptly butted him away.  Now, 2 days later, no new lambs have been born (yet!), the ewes have more or less accepted that he is part of their flock now, and he is grazing contentedly between 2 soon-to-be-mamas.  

He can be big brother to those new lambs until they leave for their new homes, and he will grow up to be a fine protector for the small flock made up of Iris and April.  Maybe they'll come around and see him as the stud that he is, say.....October or so, when it's the right time of year for those sorts of sheepish thoughts. 

Welcome, Brock!  :)

 

Laura

Meet the new sheep.....

Meet the new sheep......Same as the old sheep....

Hard to believe that these tiny, petite beauties are the same creatures as the fuzzy critters who couldn't see out from the haze of heavy wool over their eyes.

The sheep got sheared last week.  They went from fluffy to flat in less than 5 minutes each, with a mat of greasy wool on the tarp under them.  They were man-handled, flipped over and around, hanging limp or wrestled into position.  A few years ago I would have felt sorry for them.  But after seeing them in the 90 degree weather last week, it was a relief to see their built-in blankets falling off in sheets!

A sheep farmer with 200 of his own sheep makes the rounds to shear the countryside's sheep, a flock at a time.  He says it's a year-round business, and he has 200 customers.  Most of those customers have WAY more than 3 sheep for him to shear.....  

Luckily for our 2 ewes and the visiting ram, there was only one hot and humid week to suffer through before they got their summer 'do's.

I found out that I've given them too much grain, and they are fat.  Well, the up-side of that is this:  I won't be spending quite as much on their feed next year, because a scoop of grain twice a day will not be needed.  Good news!

Another good thing--confirming what I already suspected--both ewes are pregnant, due to deliver their lambs in the next 2 weeks, as declared by the expert sheep-shearer.    Did I scrutinize the bulgy sides of both ewes, every single time I was in the barn since the shearing?  Yes.  Am I once again abnormally obsessed with checking out the swelling undersides (udders) and back ends of our female animals?  Of course.  Did I sleep well last night or any of the last few nights?  Absolutely not.  Am I going out with a flashlight if I can't get back to sleep and lay awake for too long?  Yeah, no big surprise....

This is the first time we've had sheep give birth, so I'm obviously going to stress out about it.

The girls have fairly tiny udders so far, but there's a difference to how those udders look than, say, when the sheep weren't pregnant and I never, ever thought to look for any sign of feminine body parts down....there......  Their "little" udders are about the size of a half of a grapefruit.  Their sides look less huge now that all the wool is gone, but it's fun watching the lamb(s) roll around inside of them now.  When the sheep are lying down, their bulgy sides look distinctly uncomfortable....  And they seem to have that late-pregnancy waddle.  :)

Now, not to panic, but there are certain vaccinations that I didn't know about which the ewes need before the lambs are born.   So that the lambs are born with the vaccine already in their system.  Jeff and I became sheep wranglers on Sunday afternoon, giving injections and trimming hooves.  High adventure.....

There are preparations to make in case of a delivery emergency.  There are old towels to get ready, and iodine for dipping navels, and bottles in case the ewe won't nurse the babies, and pens to confine mother and lamb (so that they bond.....and in case the mother thinks about wandering off and abandoning her darling baby, or to keep hissing geese or quacking ducks out of the way as the newborn lambs are struggling to take their first steps....)

And there are things to do within 24 hours of when the little lambikins make their appearance, for both the ewe and the baby.  

And then tails must be docked and other things must be....um.....constricted (for the males) within 2 weeks.  And shot schedules (like puppies!).  And dewormings.  

Learning curve....all at once.  And today, when it looks like the lambs might actually be born (I've been thinking that for the last 5 days....), I need to drive one and a half hours into Wisconsin to bring back 3 feeder piglets.  I imagine it will be a difficult trip, as I think of my little sheep possibly giving birth while I'm gone.  

Sheep turn out to be more high-maintenance than I thought.  But I love them.  Their happy little smiling faces are so sweet to see every morning as I work through the barn chores.  

(Photos:  Iris, newly shorn and looking quite um....rotund.  The 3 sheep, Iris, Jethro, and April.  (Jethro goes back to his own farm this afternoon as his owners come to drop off our new "herd sire", who is Jethro's son and will hopefully be as magnificent and prolific as his daddy.)  And the "Before" photo, the three miserable sheep on a humid 85 degree day, a week before the shearer was able to fit us into his schedule!

Stay tuned for updates as I stress about the impending birth of the new ones! 

Laura

A family tradition?

First it was Jeff's Dad.  The story goes that, as a kid, mischievous Dale (and friends? or with brother Stan?)  set a small fire near a corn field in Michigan and the entire field caught fire and burned.  Someone in the family can elaborate on that story, but.....knowing Dale, it isn't too hard to imagine.  A cute story, when you look back on it 60+ years later.  :)

Jeff's growing-up years may have involved run-away fires, but I can't come up with any definite stories.....and none that involved a farmer's field (at least, not that I know about).

Then, about 8 years ago on a Boy Scout campout in the Woodstock area, Jeff (with Michael's junior high troop) was working on their rocket launch, and the group asked a neighboring farmer if they could shoot the rockets off over the empty cornfield.  With permission, the group launched their rockets over the field, and (the story as I heard it later) a rocket misfired and launched into the field rather than into the air.  Helpful Boy Scouts started running to stomp out the fire as adults stopped the boys from running toward danger (Thank-you, Dads, for keeping those boys safe!  Yikes!), the fire got out of control, and fire departments from quite a few area stations sent teams to put out the blaze.   Talk about hair-raising stories to go home and tell Mom about!  But the dubious making of memories for those Boy Scouts.  

(Coincidentally, that property was for sale when we were looking at farms.  What fun it would have been to own the property that was set on fire by Michael's Boy Scout troop!  Someone is raising beef cows there, now, with no field-on-fire stories to share with visitors...."Before we owned this property, we'd set it on fire once already"......)

Fast forward to yesterday.  The family brought fireworks.  The cornfield stubble behind us seemed pretty damp.  The "best" place to set off fireworks would be over the wide-open and soggy cornfield behind our pasture, right?  Unless you are setting off fireworks that are ricocheting off of trees and landing, still burning, into the corn stubble, and that corn stubble is not as saturated with moisture as you may have thought.

I looked out the kitchen window and knew something was up when I saw Jeremy running to get around the north section of perimeter fence and into the corn field.  Out the other window, Jeff was high-tailing it around the south end of the fence.  Chad apparently risked the electric wire on top of the fence being turned on, and vaulted directly over the fence and towards the scene of the crime.  

Horrible images flashed through my mind of the blaze getting out of control, our 60-foot pine trees catching fire, which would then spread to the 100+ year old cedar-sided barn.....

Carrie and I worked to free the hose from around the side of the silo, where it is set up for quick filling of the 200 gallon water tank for the cows.  Those cows have walked over and on the hose, to the point that some of it was buried under typical cow muck and mud.....almost a foot deep.

Jeff, Chad, and Jeremy were already stomping flames around the edges of the spreading scorched circle.  

With extremely low water pressure to start with, 5 hoses strung end to end, and "Pocket Hoses" being the last 2 sections of 50' each, the water from the house would not have helped much if a run-away blaze really needed to be controlled.  

A trampoline-sized black circle was still smoldering in the cornfield by the time we got the water out that far, and it really just finished the deal, rather than putting out any dangerous flames.

Wonder if the farmer will take notice, as he comes around in the next few weeks to plow the field for soybean planting.  That could be a fun story to tell (not!)

I got to be the party-pooper about half an hour later, as.....the fireworks committee decided that one fire had not been enough, and I saw brightly colored streaks zipping past the kitchen window.....and straight towards the main part of the house.

At that point, I was glad to see that rain was starting and that further outdoor fun would be cut short.

The rest of the family is already counting the scorch mark in the corn field as one more story to add to "Family Tradition", the third corn field that the Dykstra family has had the honor of setting ablaze.

It was excitement that I could have done without!  

Jeremy remarked (with interest) as he put his shoes on this morning "Hmm...my shoes still smell like fire."  Then he proudly showed me how the toes of his soles were slightly melted.  

I wonder what the 6th grade conversation around lunchtables and in the hallway will be about on this particular Monday morning.  By the end of the day, the whole school will think that the Dykstra family burned down an entire cornfield over the weekend.  :)

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Echoes in the sound.....of.....silence

It's really dark out here at night.  When the traffic dies down on our busy thoroughfare, it's fairly quiet, too.

Which makes the night-time noises 3 times as creepy as if the traffic was still zipping down the road, or the black of night was tempered by the city lighting......

Walking to the rabbit shed to tuck them in for the night, it's dark, quiet, and definitely CREEPY!  

It's not just me.  Jeremy says the same thing.  

The noise you hear all arounnd makes you want to walk a little faster, maybe even run, makes you look behind you to see what is following, makes you want urgently to get into the faint lighting of the rabbit shed or high-tail it back to the safety of the house.

It sounds kind of like raindrops hitting leaves on a tree, but the trees aren't leafed out yet, and, if you stand still, you won't get wet.

The sound is like something stepping softly and stealthily on crunchy leaves, trying not to be heard.    

There are lots of small critters to rustle through those leaves, but usually when that's the case the cats or dogs will be on high alert, ready to pounce.  

It occurred to me that it could be rodents or even large beetles (lots of them!)  Or snakes (LOTS of snakes!).  I thought I'd watch Rocky (the husky) for a clue, because he had just unearthed and killed a shrew earlier in the week.  Nope, no interest at all.

Sly, the indoor-outdoor cat slunk past.  No interest from him, either, even though the skittering sounds were all around me by then.  If I moved, some of the noises stopped, but overall, it was a constant drip-drip-drip or scritch-scratch-scritch sound, in the blackness, in the silence, threatening to freak me out! 

I was stumped, until I sat in the lighted area of the back step one warm night to just listen.....

After a while, something glinted on the ground as it moved.  Salamanders?  Then I focused in on quite a few more "glints", and could see segments of something slimy.  But not a salamander.

Of course!  

We have rich black crumbly topsoil everywhere.....

We have lots of fallen leaves, everywhere.....

There are small holes in the ground that seem to have tufts of leaves and pine needles sticking up out of them, unexplained in their strangeness.....but always plenty of them, even when it hasn't been raining.

If you dig up a shovelful of topsoil anywhere on the property, what will you find?

Nightcrawlers!

They stretch out under the top layer of leaves.  They nose around above the soil looking for a meal.  They are fabulous at breaking down rotting leaves or soggy bits of wood or water-logged pine needles, and making top soil.

They anchor themselves in their holes while they STRETCH out to explore for food......

They grab what they want to eat with their mouth (can you call it a mouth?) and pull their slimy selves, leaf and all, back into their hole.  

Thousands upon thousands of nightcrawlers are munching onfallen leaves from last year.  And it sounds like raindrops.  Or stealthy footsteps on crunchy leaves.  Or rodents dashing through barely concealed tunnels.  Or any number of things, at least when it's dark and quiet and your mind is going a mile-a-minute trying to figure out what unearthly creatures have you surrounded!

The sound of rich black silence is broken by the sound of.....earthworms.

Who knew?

But knowing makes it just a LITTLE less creepy, as we found out last night.  Mystery uncovered, clues finally proving what we needed to know, but......we still quickened out step just a bit as we felt (rather than heard) the crackling and pattering sounds taking over the quiet air around us on our way out to the shed!

:)

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/