Thursday, March 20, 2008

Lambing - Day 3

Today is the first day of the Easter Holidays :D
I got to the farm for 7am and did the hays and waters in the new shed.
I strawed down both sheds.
At 8, Lois who I used to work at Ash End Farm turned up! She is here on a 2 week University Placement (she is a 1st year vet student).

We all fed the sheep and got the newborn lambs from the big pens into the little pens and Iodine and Spectamed them.
We freed up a few more little pens by turning out some of the older lambs into the field. We've put a set of triplets out into the paddock next to the shed so we can keep an eye on them.

We rubber ringed some of the lambs tails and castrated them, and trimmed the ewes hooves. Then we sprayed I.D. numbers onto the ewes and lambs.
I helped to deliver my first lamb! :D
I put on a huge shoulder length glove and then using my fingers, felt my way inside and felt that the 2 front legs were facing forward with the head. I got hold of the legs and made sure they bonded to one single lamb, because otherwise if it was 2 lambs you would pull them apart and rip their legs. It was only one lamb so I waited for the ewe to contract, and then working with her, pulled the lamb out.
You have to pull it out and then straight away clear the membrane off the lambs face and inside the mouth and next pinch the nose to make it sneeze. If it doesn't sneeze poke some clean straw into the nose to clear it so it is breathing. You get some straw and rub the lamb to get it breathing and then put the lamb in front of the ewe so that she licks it clean and bonds with it.
We changed the hay and waters and went home at 4.

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