A Big Butt Day

When I got to the ranch today and checked in on the nursery, I had a lame lamb.  He was packing his back right leg and laying down in the most inopportune places.  Since my Laura Lawson books arrived yesterday, I decided to leave poor Shannon alone and instead looked up lamb lameness...following the yes/no diagram and decided that I had a case of "butted lamb syndrome."  I do have a really cranky ewe that thinks any baby but her own is darn right ugly....and I think this poor lamb got the butt of her attitude.  I jugged him, his brother and his ma....gave him some multi B and a tiny bit of banamine and the family will stay in the jug until he is feeling better.

Remember my story from last year.....the one about Coyote Girl: she who was given to me as a young lamb, still nursing her mom, savagely attacked by coyotes and not only lived to tell the story but crawled back to civilization, given to me to live in the plush, green, garden of Eden without much of a betting odds at life.  Well, she lambed today...a HUGE single boy.  I always worry about her and her ability to push from all the damage done to her as a youngster but we got her lamb out and he (YES HE) is big and beautiful and solid black.  While she was cleaning him up, the last of my coopworth/blue face leicester ewes started in on her task at hand.  I let her push for about 15 minutes and well, being impatient and very curious and never minding to help...I gloved up, went in and found the longest ear I have ever felt....until it dawned on me I had a tail!  And those bony projections were not jaws nor a head...I had a butt!  No time to grab Laura Lawson, nor place a call...I was in and again, had to get 'er done.  In my past experiences, I have never had to make  right this breach presentation....my only breaches have come back legs first.  It was tight, interesting and I did worry I might break a leg...but the lamb was small and I wiggled her legs up and out and gave a good pull and it was A GIRL!!!!!  I handed her to her mom, roughed her up a bit and went back in for GIRL NUMBER TWO!!!!!  Who was covered in meconium...which is what happens when lambs are stressed during birthing...they poo their first in eutero.  I knew there was another babe as I had to sort out three front legs....so back in I went and pulled out the poopiest lamb I have ever seen, GIRL NUMBER THREE!!!  As me and the mom were cleaning and sorting these beautiful ewe lambs, my precious', as they are the first of the girls this year, I kept thinking of how I'm not a real fan of triplets....seems if you don't pull one to bottle feed, they all end up smaller and not as healthy.  So as Ms. Coyote Girl was watching worried, and talking to us, over the jug wall.  I picked up the thriftiest of the girls, showed it to CG and asked if she wanted her.  I do believe she winked at me as I laid the babe at her feet and watched in total amazement as Coyote Girl began to clean the adopted lamb and mutter her imprinting mutters.  I whisked the triplet mom and her two keeper lambs to a jug across the barn in hopes this part-donor mom would forget about her smell in the neighboring jug.  As I left the barn this afternoon, tired from the huge pull-job and not just a little sore, I smiled at my Coyote Girl with her big black boy and her tiny white girl, and thankful to my coop/bf ewe for making two sets of twins for me. 

It was one of those days where I lifted my eyes to find the beauty of the climb!

Seize the Day!