Sheep: Lambing, Vaccinating, and Docking

In mid-January, Rosie started showing early signs of lambing. The first signs were moving around slower and less often, and she groaned when she laid down or got up. I originally thought her due date was January 11th, but I learned later that it was actually over a week later, on January 19th.

As Rosie started showing more signs, I checked her more and more often. I often got up at least once in the night to check on her. Because the barn is at my grandparents’ house on another part of the farm, I had to drive there on the side-by-side. I’m just glad that I was able to drive it. I had it down to a science and by the time she lambed it only took me 12 minutes to get dressed in my coat and boots, put my contacts on (I must’ve lost my glasses), drive over, check on her, come home, and go back to bed.

This went on for three weeks! Rosie finally lambed 2 weeks after her real due date on February 4th. I had noticed a couple days before that she had finally bagged up, and the night before she lambed I heard her groaning a lot, but when I checked her that morning I didn’t even think she would have it for a while. We had a day off from school because of the snow, so I went back home for a while.

When I went and checked Rosie that afternoon, I was shocked to find two lambs with her! After waiting so long, it felt unreal that they were finally here! They must have been born just before I found them. One of them was still laying down and the other was just taking its first steps. My parents were on vacation (of course) so I immediately called them with tears of joy in my eyes. They were just as thrilled as me.

Once I had checked them all out and saw them both nurse, I talked to M the breeder again and told her the news. She filled me in on everything I needed to do. I had to give them their injections soon and an electrolyte to keep them healthy, but with the blizzard going on outside I had to wait until the next day. Fortunately, they were doing well enough on their own and didn’t need it too badly.

Since lambs are naturally born in the spring, there’s things we have to do for winter lambs that might not be necessary in spring lambs. Winter lambs need an extra heat source in the form of a heat lamp or a dog sweater. As weird as the dog sweaters sound, heat lamps are a major fire hazard, and if it fell in the straw the entire barn could very likely burn down, so I chose the dog sweaters. They have an added benefit of being adorable on newborn lambs.

As I was putting their sweaters on, I checked their sex and saw that one was a ewe (female) and one was a ram (male). That was perfect! I needed to have a ram lamb to show at fair, but I had hoped to have a ewe I could keep to breed later on. The lambs were exactly what I’d hoped for. I decided to call the ewe Violet, and the ram Ice.

I kept checking on the lambs throughout the day, and everytime they were doing great. The next day, my grandpa drove me out to M’s farm to get the medicine I needed. She gave me a quick rundown on how to administer them. Both injections were subcutaneous, meaning they were injected below the skin but not into the muscle. When I went home, I did it right away, and both lambs handled it well. Ice got scared when I was almost done injecting the second shot, so he jerked and the needle ripped his skin. Although there was some blood, he was fine.

My parents got back a couple of days later. It was just in time, because it was time to dock the lambs’ tails. Although I could probably do it myself, I was happy to have an extra hand. It probably sounds concerning to cut off a sheep’s tail, but there is a good reason.

Sheep are prone to fly strike because manure sticks to the wool on their tails. Flies lay their eggs on the manure-covered wool and it becomes a nesting ground for maggots. This can become a major issue that can even lead to death in some conditions. To prevent this, wool breeds (there’s also hair breeds like the Katahdin and Dorper who don’t have this issue) have their tails docked at a young age. In showing, it’s actually become desirable to have a tailless sheep.

I was nervous to dock the lambs’ tails, but it was nowhere near as bad as I thought. We used a tool called an elastrator, which is a plier-like tool also used for castrating animals. It has prongs on the end that you loop a certain type of rubber band over. All you have to do is fit the rubber band over the prongs and release it over the part of the tail you need to dock. On show sheep like mine, you go as far up on the tail as you can. On some breeding sheep, you only cut off part.

After I released the band, it caused the lambs a little bit of pain, so they both cried out, but it didn’t take long for it to go away. After I set them back in their stalls, Ice went and nursed for a minute, then changed his mind and started rolling on the ground like it was causing a lot of pain. I was a little concerned, but I’d done my research and this was normal. Within five minutes he’d stopped and went to lay down. After I put Violet back in the stall, she didn’t even care at all.

The band will slowly cut off circulation to their tail. It might be a little sore sometimes, but it shouldn’t cause much pain. Within 3 weeks, the tails will fall off. It’s a few days after I docked their tails, and they’re still doing really well.

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I’m really excited to have the first lambs ever born on our farm! So far, my 4-H sheep project has been a great learning experience that’s been really enjoyable too. Although I was regretting it for a bit when I was getting up in the middle of the night to check on Rosie, I’m really glad that I chose to breed my own sheep.