They come first by ones or twos, often at night, often during a cold snap or a strong spring wind. Slowly at first, and quietly, standing on little shaking legs with their mothers in the early morning light. Two in one night, then five, maybe 3 sets of twins. And then all at once, they come: the new lambs.
In early morning and late afternoon we gather, rounding up the new mothers and their little ones and moving them into their own nursery flocks: one for single-birth ewes and another for multiple-birth ewes. It’s easier for us to monitor whether each ewe has her lamb (or lambs) this way. They’ll stay in their separate flocks for a few weeks, each with their own shepherd and guard dogs to help keep watch over the little ones.
The vast majority of the ewes have easy births and produce enough milk; most have been mothers before and know what to do, and even the first-timers have a strong mother instinct. But some inevitably need help: the ewe that doesn’t produce enough milk for the number of lambs she has, or is just uncertain about motherhood, or the lamb that just doesn’t seem to want to live. This is where the bulk of the work is for us, helping the few who really need us to succeed.
All these go into the hospital pens; some just so we can keep an eye on them for a few days, others so they can get some supplemental feed, still others for more intensive intervention. The hospital pen, too, is where fostering takes place. Unavoidably, some lambs die and others are orphaned or abandoned and it’s in the hospital pens where these ewes and lambs have the chance to form a new family.
Lambing season is our make-or-break time of year - it’s a season of exhaustion, of hard work and wind, but also a time of expectation, hope, and beauty. It’s tremendously satisfying work, too.
