Lambing =/= Kidding

 Two days! Two ewes! Two lambs! I'm glad that Limu and Flo at least coordinated, but also wild shenanigans abounded.

RELEASE US

1. Of course they both lambed out in the field, not conveniently in the barn. No problem! I know to use the lamb to lure the ewe where I want her to be once she's got it mostly clean. This lead to Flo getting confused, going back to where she had him, and deciding that clearly Sif had disappeared her lamb somehow... even though he was hollering for her in the barn. Lesson learned: BACK away from the ewe, keeping the lamb between her and you. If the lamb leaves her line of site for even a fraction of a second she forgets where it is and panics.
2. Lambs are really quite stoic. When I dip a goat kid's navel (a process that involves turning them on their backs for good coverage), they holler, which draw's mom's attention. Lambs are just like "welp this is my life now," once again causing the ewe to be confused, because wait where did my baby just go? Oh wait there it is!
3. Lambs get up MUCH FASTER than at least my goats do. This leads to a toddling lamb looking for the milk bar while mama is trying to wash its face. They kind of circle each other. This is adorable.
4. Ewes have TINY LITTLE NIPPLES. Is the baby nursing or is it just sucking the side of her udder? I'm not sure. Shine a flashlight under there. Now the baby is confused because it got bright all of a sudden and it was just born.
5. With both ewes in stalls with their lambs, Jake from State Farm can no longer find his ladies like 95% of the time. Where did they go? Are they lost? Ram screm ensues. He sounds like he smokes a pack a day, more so than usual.
6. Sheep are follow mammals - their babies follow them very closely from day one. Goats are cache mammals - they hide their babies and go back to feed them until they're strong enough to keep up. This makes finding the babies both very easy (they're with mama!) and very difficult (mama could be anywhere!).
7. If I pick up a lamb, the ewe does not know where it went. The lamb, still stoic, says "welp this is my life now" again. The ewe runs around in a panic calling for her baby. Sheep, turns out, do not look up.

NYOOOOOOM

They are extremely cute and I look forward to them frolicking in the pasture, and also, Soay ewes generally blow their fleece shortly after lambing... so also FLEEEEEECE. They're so soft and allowing more scritches than ever before!!!

I'm all alone...

The problem with wool

 So Jake from State Farm got shorn. He feels much better.

Release me! I see ladies!

This means that I get a fleece! I really enjoy Jacob fleece, but you can't just spin wool, even the nicest wool, straight off the sheep. Well you could but it's not a GREAT idea, because sheep are dirty little grease balls. So we've got some prep steps:

The skirting floor, ie my front room.

1. Skirt the fleece. This means you lie it out flat and pick off the gross parts at the edges... poopy bits, felted bits, in the case of Jacob sheep, hair.
2. Wash (scour) the fleece. Yes you just took out the gross parts. All the other parts are also a LITTLE BIT gross. And did I mention greasy? Lanolin folks - it comes from sheep! There are multiple methods to wash a fleece, but I personally put it in a giant mesh laundry bag, fill the bathtub with hot water and dish soap, and slowly, GENTLY soak the fleece. Heat + agitation = felt. Heat is also the easiest way to get the grease out. I usually do two soap soaks and three or four rinse soaks.
   
3. Dry the fleece. Getting all the water out take BLOODY FOREVER. I squish it out in the tub, then roll it up in towels and stomp on it, then spread it out as far as I can under a full blast ceiling fan. Usually on my bed. This is the part where my husband becomes concerned. He shouldn't be because I am very smart and spread it out on a sheet, so I can roll it up and move it if we need to sleep. He is wonderful but does not understand my madness.
4. Card/comb the fleece. This is where you have some more choices, which are primarily dictated by what tools you have access to. Someday I will have all the tools. SOMEDAY. But right now I have a drum carder and hand cards. The drum carder usually wins, because hand cards take ages and I'm the "card it all before I spin any of it" type - mostly because having to stop spinning to card some more fills me with rage.

Now you have wool ready to spin! I'm asked regularly whether spinning my own yarn is a money saver versus using commercial yarn, and it definitely is not. But you have to figure in all the bonus entertainment value of all of this STUFF. Learn to spin! You will never "have nothing to do" again!

I desire friendship. Sheep desire NOT THAT.

 So I am trying to make friends with my new sheep.

They come from a fairly large herd and are not dairy animals, which means they are mostly accustomed to being handled if they need medicine or something - so, not great associations. Also the ewes are Soays.

You have nothing we desire, human.

Soay sheep "developed" from feral/wild sheep on the Scottish island of Soay (hence the name), and at that time their experience with humans was "those weird things that come get our wool once a year." They are not even shorn, they shed their wool out in the spring. So they are smart for sheep and have fairly good survival instincts, as well as being extremely hardy.

The survival instincts are becoming a problem, actually, because those instincts do not include "the human and the dogs will keep me safe." Fortunately we were making progress (the secret to sheep friendship is animal crackers), when we had a flood and the electric fence between our pasture and the neighbor's pasture was no longer zappy for awhile.

If I wanted to be in that field I would already be there.

Sheep, it turns out, are stupid enough to continue testing the fence, smart enough to figure out that their wool insulates them once it turns back on again, and filled with desire to trespass. Limu, in particular, is the "smart one" and ring leader.

You offend us! You offend our ancestors!

Things that we have attempted to break them of their crime habits:

1. Keep them off that field for a week so they'll "forget" that they can get through that fence. They did not forget. I spent hours cleaning the wool off the fence wires for NOTHING.
2. Shear Jake from State Farm (who needed it anyway) in hopes that one being trapped would keep them all close. JfSF screamed for awhile and then figured out how to crawl through anyway.
3. Triangle collars made of PVC pipe. Flo removed hers within an hour. By morning all sheep were naked and trespassing. Limu took off her collar IN THE NEIGHBOR'S FIELD.
4. Give up. The sheep vanished without a trace and were found an hour later way down behind the bend of the creek.
5. Keep them off the front field again and just let the goats up there at night, with the sheep on the back, because the goats need more field but also need hay and giving them both at once causes Sheep Crime.
6. Triangle collars PART TWO. With holes drilled in the PVC. And even more zip ties. And swearing. We haven't actually done this yet because I'm tired.

But lady they LEFT ME!

Meanwhile the girls are beginning to breast boobily about the pasture, making containment more important than ever - because if they drop lambs in not my field somewhere I will loose my mind.

Buy stock in animal crackers. We're going through a lot of them.