This post is a little late, but here’s the scoop on the unplanned lambing situation…

We brought home our Southdown Babydoll ram on February 25, assuming our ewes were all done with breeding season. If you don’t know, ewes go into heat in the fall, carry babies for five months, and lamb in the spring.

Well, we were wrong…

On August 3, we went out in the morning to feed the animals and found THIS…

Ayla looks like, “Surprise!! Look what I did!”

OMG! I had JUST ordered lambing supplies for spring that would be delivered Thursday. This was Saturday. I had nothing. I panicked and called my sheep mentor who walked through what to do, what to look for, what was next. It was nothing I didn’t know, but holy cow, nobody was expecting a LAMB ON THE GROUND on August 3rd!!! I’m staring at Ayla and this baby, counting backwards on my fingers. 5 months, um, that would be about March 1st. Yep. I wish I would have known she was pregnant so I could have paid more attention to her health and nutrition. Not that I don’t take good care of my flock, but still.

Strangely, when the flock was sheared in April, my shearer said Ayla and the ram were both too fat to breed, so we needed to get their weight down by fall. Of course I messaged him that not only could they breed just fine, but she was pregnant when he sheared her. LOL!

We saw the lamb get up and nurse, so we knew she was getting colostrum. First item on the list – check. We picked her up and moved mama and baby into the safety of a pen so the little one wouldn’t get stepped on by the other sheep. Second item on the list – check. We dipped her naval. Third item on the list – check. We weighed her. 6.5 lbs. Fourth item on the list – check. We examined mama, found the placenta, checked mama’s teats, gave her some grain and hay and warm water. Fifth item on the list – check. We tried to walk away and let them rest and bond, but I had to take a gazillion pictures first.

The sheep like to graze in the evenings, so for the first week, we ushered them into a shelter in the mornings, so mama could go out and graze for a bit with baby and nobody else would be around to cause problems.

After getting over the shock of an unplanned lamb, we named her Trace Creek Emma.

She is registered with Olde English Babydolls OE27042

Her dam is Tin Stone Ayla OE24075. Her sire is Bruce Lee OE26393/NAB19792. She looks a lot like her sire and he’s such a beautiful babydoll. We’re keeping her!