We were hoping for a lambing over the weekend so our course participants could watch but in typical fashion our last one was Friday night and since then nothing. The course has now ended and so we fully expect to have lambings tonight!!! (Just to annoy!).
So, our Friday lambing was actually the early hours of Saturday morning when around 2.30am Jack did a final check of the sheep before heading for bed. It was a vile night with high winds and rain and it was thus a massive shock to find Muckle has given birth outside on the goat path and had two very shivery lambs. Jack got them all inside the field shelter (where Muckle should have gone herself) and spent the next two hours getting them warm and fed. Muckle was very agitated and not happy to be still enough for the lambs to feed so Jack milked her to get some colostrum and then bottle fed both lambs. It took a while for the boy in particular to stop shivering and for his belly to fill up but by around 4.45am Jack felt both lambs were warm and full enough for her to go to bed. By this stage the ewe lamb had managed to latch on a couple of times as Muckle was much calmer.
We know Muckle is a good mum usually and we are happy to say that over the weekend, the lambs have been feeding well and as such, we plan on letting them all out back into the field tomorrow – the weather is getting a tad warmer this week so that will help enormously!