We Smell

We are emitting some "eau de barnyard" today here on Gael Glen Farm.  

Having spent a good part of the day in the sheep barn, thanks to the arrival of our new set of twins, Gillian and Willoughby, I now smell like a sheep.

It was pretty tough getting a non-blurry photo of these two as they were constantly on the move!

Molly seems to think this is pretty funny!

Gillian, our ewe lamb, is bigger and a bit of an attention hog.

Willoughby, our new ram lamb, is already giving me more grey hair.  When I found the twins this morning (they were born some time between my 2 am and 7 am barn checks), Willoughby's front right leg had a weird kink and he seemed to be favouring it.

I am wondering if he was positioned oddly in the womb or if it was in a strange position during the birth, or if Molly accidentally stepped on him.  It is impossible to know.

Aside from his leg, he seemed fine throughout the day until my 5 pm check when I noticed that more of his umbilical cord seemed to be pushed out of his navel than had been earlier in the day.  Gillian's cord was almost completely dried up while Willoughby's was now about 7 cm long and bright red.  After a telephone consult with our farm vet, we tied it off with dental floss, sprayed it again with idoine disinfectant and are hoping for the best.  The vet said that it is a good sign that Willoughby is nursing and walking around.  Hopefully he has a good night.

I think "sheep lactation consultant" might be my real calling.  I am proud to say that both twins are nursing and Poppy is continuing to nurse, though only off the left side.

This means that I need to keep milking out Violet's right udder to try to avoid the onset of mastitis.  Violet does not enjoy being milked but having put some colostrum away in the freezer for future emergency use, any milk I get now will be used for soap making.  Sheep soap, here we come!

Thankfully, I am not the only smelly one in our household this evening.  After 8 hours of hard work, Ian smells like fencing.  And even Liam smells!  He planted a bunch of seeds this afternoon and helped Ali and I do some weeding.  The smell of garden dirt is a wonderful thing!

Now that we are done lambing, we can begin to anticipate our next new arrivals - the ducks and turkeys hatch on Thursday!  Hatching birds smell too - really, really bad.  Unfortunately for Ian, the incubator is in his office so he will be fully immersed in the new bird stench upon their arrival.  I will take sheep, fencing or dirt smell over chick stench any day!