Every book I have states that 95% of ewes lamb with no difficulty and need no assistance.  Of course I have to delve into the 5% category.

Last night around 9:30 Mother’s water broke.  She appeared in no hurry to lamb however, so I kept checking on her to make sure there was no need to step in.  While all this was happening, the cold/flu like thing that’s been brewing in me since last week erupted full force and knocked me out cold.  I woke up this morning and high tailed it outside to check on Mother, certain she would be dead, the lambs dead, basically beating myself up for not making sure I stayed awake.  There were no lambs on the ground and Mother wasn’t dead.  In fact she seemed quite alert and was extremely perky given how long it took me to catch her.

I made a quick call to the vet to come pull the lambs even though I was now beginning to wonder if I had actually seen her water break.  She was certainly not in distress nor, apparently, in hard labor.  Dr. Jeff even gave me a second look when he hopped out of his truck.  It was some time around 6:00 a.m. by now.  Too long, I figured, to pull live lambs from Mother.  Hopefully not so long that we lost her as well.

Dr. Jeff went to work, reaching inside he could definitely feel the twins and they seemed to want to come out together.  He needed to push the twins back a bit, then sort out which head belonged to which legs and which body.  We were both certain it was bodies he would be removing.

As he pulled the first twin free, a largish brown & white ram, we stared at each other in an instant’s amazement.  It was alive!  I cleared its head and mouth and Dr. Jeff gave it a good swing or two through the air to clear its lungs and really get it breathing.  He laid the ram lamb across Mother’s back to keep it warm and allow me to work on it and keep Mother still as he pulled the second lamb.  She let us know as soon as her mouth was clear that she was not only alive but royally ticked off.  With both lambs draped across Mother, Dave (who only just showed up on the scene) was sent running after some towels.

Dr. Jeff looked at me in amazement.  “I love these sheep,” he declared.  A woolie ewe, in his estimation, would not have survived, nor would the lambs.  So with the rising of the sun, glinting off the snow covered fields with a hint of spring to come, he clambered back into his truck and left me to help Mother see to the twins.

Now, I know I swore I wasn’t going to name lambs this year but I just had to name  Mother’s twins Jugs and Speed.  I intend to keep a close eye on them throughout the day since I’m home sick from work.  They are far from out of the woods as far as I’m concerned.  It was rough getting into the world, I want to make sure they stay a while.