Monday, February 22, 2010

Finally... Binkie delivered

We finally have our first lamb of the year. There were twins but the first ewe lamb was stillborn. I blame myself because I didn't check on her during the night. We had the baby monitor on and couldn't hear anything going on. But when I went out to feed this morning, Binkie was lying down with the first lamb out and cold and the head of the second one out.












She must have run out of energy delivering. I quickly felt of the cold lamb to see if there was a heart beat, but I couldn't feel one. Then I helped deliver the second, which took just a little steady pull and she slid right out. Poor Binkie was so tired it took her a moment to get up.

A brisk towel dry and the little girl was shaking her head and ready for the world. Binkie took over the clean up and I left them alone a while. I tried some more on the cold lamb but couldn't get any sign of life. I couldn't see anything wrong with it other than it was dead. Pretty little ewe lamb, these are the heart-breaking moments of raising these sweet babies.

I fed the "3 musketeers"... our miniature stallions... and the other sheep their breakfast and gave Binkie hers... she does love to eat. Then I went in to get the camera to snap some pictures. By the time I came back to the barn, the lamb was walking around a bit looking for her breakfast. I checked to make sure both "faucets" were working and pointed the baby to them. You can always tell when they latch on because that little tail starts wagging.

I would have loved to stay and watch them but I had to go to work, though I was now running a bit late.

I'm already trying to think of a name for her... my first year's lambs were named with "R" names, then we bought two that got nicknamed with "S" names, then 2009 was the "T" year... but I'm not sure about "U" names... Even with the farm being Unicorner. ;-)

Any suggestions?

6 comments:

  1. She's beautiful! Congrats! How bout 'Umayma', it is an female Egyptian name :) ..ok I just went and googled names that start with U, lots of them out there! Although they are almost all hard to pronounce lol

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  2. LOL, how is that pronounced? You Mama? Heeehee.

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  3. Ulista, Ulysses, Ulla, Ultima, Usef, Uncle, Ursa, Ulinda, Usee . . . can you tell I love thinking of names?

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  4. She's so cute! Una is Irish and is derived from "uan" meaning "lamb". You can look it up on behindthename.com.

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  5. Thanks, Kim, that's a neat website! After looking at those I might be able to come up with enough U names.

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  6. Thanks, Michelle, there are some good possibilities in there. Maybe it will be the U year after all... but be sure to check back in three years when I get to X!! ;-)

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