By Joyce Weaver

In my last article I spoke about lambing your flock on pasture and did not recommend it. However, sometimes circumstances are such that it happens and can’t be prevented.

As I write this article in mid-May, I am in the midst of spring lambing a group of 60 very pregnant ewes. I have run out of hay and it is still too early to start haying again with the frequent rains, so I have turned the flock out to pasture. My mature ewes are in the habit of grazing in the morning and then returning to the barn for safety and shade to relax and chew their cud about noon each day. My mature ewes prefer to lamb close to the barn or in the barn which makes it quite convenient for me to collect the ewes and newborns and put them in safe lambing pens for a few days.

Well, yesterday the entire crowd of sheep came to the barn at noon as usual – except for three that stayed out in the field. Aha! Red flag! So, I got on my little Mahindra 26 HP tractor and went out there to check on them. Two were lying close together. One had just shelled out twins and was cleaning them off and the one next to her was pushing. The third young ewe was standing some distance away but had successfully lambed a pretty brown and white ewe lamb. I decided to leave them alone for a while and went to the house for lunch.

Next I checked the barn. Three of the ewes that had returned from pasture were in the process of birthing in the barn. Good. Those would be easy to collect and pen. Now to attempt to collect the ones on pasture. As it turned out after checking their eartags later, the three ewes lambing on pasture were all first timer young ewes. That figures. They hadn’t learned the routine yet.

Normally when a ewe lambs out on pasture she does not want to leave the spot where she has lambed. Plus if there are other sheep near her she doesn’t want to leave her friends. With all the predators around now – including coyotes and the black headed vultures that will attack newborns and vulnerable livestock – I will not leave newborns out in the field over night. So I use a dog crate placed in the bucket of my tractor and go out to the field and place the lambs in the dog crate and slowly back the tractor to the barn keeping the bucket low to the ground so the mama sheep can see her lambs and she usually follows them right along up to the safety of the barn. I said usually. Well, this group of three new mothers didn’t get the message. Sometimes first-time mothers can be dingbats.

I started off putting the newborn twins (from the black and white ewe) in the dog cage and backing up for the barn. She followed a few feet and then kept running back to the other two ewes. So I ended up taking the twins up to the barn without their mother, put them in a pen awaiting their mother, and went back for the others. I then put the remaining two lambs (singles) in the dog cage and headed for the barn, backing up so their mothers could see their lambs leaving the premises. Finally, the three hysterical mothers began following me to the barn. It was a lot of work, but I finally got all three new mothers safely to the barn and in their pens with their babies and all was well again.

Happy quiet mamas and happy nursing safe lambs. No feed for the vultures or coyotes tonight, thank you very much. Not going to happen on this Shepherdess’s watch.

Joyce Weaver raises both hair sheep and goats on 57-acre farm in west central Indiana. Contact lambjoyw@gmail.com