Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Bethany's triplets have arrived


Well, the weather is gearing up to storm, high winds and the changes in barometric pressures pushed Bethany into labour this morning. She wasn't too quick to the hay was our first sign that today was probably the day. Then about 8 am she started laying down, getting up and this just got progressively more so as we approached 10am when she went into full labour and pushing. Within 30-45 minutes she had delivered 2 girls and a boy. Of course this was out in the field so I went out to help her clean them off and get them dry as quickly as possible. When they began to get shivery I went and got the sleeve coats. Here's what they looked like sporting their outerwear. But now that we're up to 70F it's time to take them off so they didn't over heat and get a good look at their colouring. Of course getting a picture of all three in one frame turned out to be a wee bit challenging so here's 2 with the third hiding behind Mum. These Jacob sheep are extremely vigorous and hardy. The lambs were up and nursing within 5-10 min. of being born and certainly Bethany births without much fuss.

Now all the others are roaming around the house and into the garden area but I see Precious, our other Mum to be, standing around looking like she's listening to something far away ... I've got an idea her labour will be soon too. We, of course, hadn't planned to bred Precious, a Corriedale to Issac a Jacob but I made the classic error of trusting to a ram who normally respects electric fencing - baaaad move! So would be sheep farmers, please do not feel sorry for your ram in his nice field fencing pen or you too will have unplanned lambs.

3 comments:

marchwind said...

Liese they are so cute! The little one in the red coat (last picture) looks almost like a little cow, lol!!!

I just love the babies. Pat mom and give her a big treat. It must be nice to be able to give birth to three and get up and around and still look good. Maybe I'll be a sheep in my next life.

carpoolknitter said...

Three with little fuss! Good Bethany. They are perfectly adorable, of course. And Precious soon too! What will the fleece be like on a Corriedale/Jacob X?

Liese said...

Well, time will tell about what their fleeces will be like but as you can see from the next post, they sure have colour! Precious must have colour in her genetic background.

Now on the Jacob trips - each of them has a slightly different texture but one is especially different being a silky, wavy flat coat.

Susan if you could make sure you are a sheep in a spinner's flock it would be a very nice life :).