Two weeks now from the official lambing date, and one of our ewes, Sharona, well, whilst I would not say she has ‘uddered up’, her udder does suddenly seem more noticeable. Typically, maidens, like ours, don’t have much to show first time, whereas old-timers might have a large udder some days before the lamb arrives. It might mean nothing.. maybe just the weight of the lamb? It has become the time when we shall be looking for signs in everything.
and time to gather the lambing kit together. Ours is:
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a clean bucket with a lid containing:
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lambing rope
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snare
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lubricant
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old towels
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headtorch and batteries
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powerful rechargeable torch, fully charged
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walkie talkies, fully charged (very handy if one of you checks them, can get the other without trudging back to the house, or if leaving kids in the house whilst you tend to the livestock)
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mobile phone, fully charged, with vet’s number stored
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umbilical spray
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clean scissors (for trimming umbilical cord)
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stomach tube
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feed bottle
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powdered colostrum (frozen real colostrum is better)
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clean container for saving colostrum from ewe, if she has spare or loses lamb etc, good to have a stash in the freezer for future lambing.
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disposable gloves (more likely to use bare hands, but in case of smelly dead lambs etc.)
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halter ( in case I am on my own, trying to restrain and help at the same time…)
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antibiotics and needles (available from vet)
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lambing notes/guide/book
as well as this, we have water proof trousers, a heat box (aka the rayburn!) and an elasticator and rings for tails and castration, and someone we can call on to help.
The book we like, as first timers!, is a Manual of Lambing Techniques, by A. Winter and C.Hill. Nice and simple - not like the veterinary tomes the vet leading the lambing course had, but with simple diagrams and a useful guide on what to do, and when to seek help. And with instructions on making your own lambing ropes. Very handy
The exciting bit is almost upon you - good luck!
That’s a pretty similar list to the kit we had - we had a couple of extra things that probably aren’t essential, but did come in handy. Of these, a small pump action bottle of lamb Kickstart was the most useful - it seems to revive sluggish or unresponsive lambs pretty quickly. (We also had a bottle of Liquid Lifeaid and Calciject/Magniject + syringes/needles - as we had already had a ewe with pregnancy toxaemia in the run up to lambing).
The other thing we tried and seemed to work is doing a final feed of ewe nuts at 10pm each night for the last month - apparently disturbance at night can increase the chance of daytime lambing….we only had one ewe lamb at night the other eight ewes were during the day.
We will keep watching for an update.
thanks for that. I certainly will feel daft if they are not in lamb
mind you worse is if we mess up somehow….
Funnily enough, I only bought a pump of kickstart yesterday at the farmer suppliers.. because you had mentioned it.
btw, you had a theory about being able to tell which ewes were carrying singles and twins based on their shape. how accurate did you find it in the end?
The theory was pretty accurate - except for one ewe that everyone though was having multiples and ended up having a single, she was just fat.
The theory is that when viewed from the back, a distinct bulge on the right will be a single, while overall roundness or bulges on both sides will mean multiples.
I couldn’t spot this until Andy pointed it out - and he pretty much spot on….but then again, he correctly guessed the order of lambing by checking how bagged up they were even with a few weeks to go.
hmm interesting. Well ours are currently - definite bulge to one side.. thats Sharona, who I think will be first, Shirley is broad both sides, and Sheila just looks fat..
ah well we shall see