Lambing season is the best and the worst time of year for a shepherd.
If one is smart (a good deal smarter than me) then it's easy to know when the lambs are going to pop out. The ram is separate from the flock for most of the year and only visits them at a specific time. This gives a birthing window of only a few days or weeks.
It seems for me, every year accidents happen. This year, my timing was off when I removed my last ram lamb so he got friendly with a few ewes, and Larry, my would be wether with one ball, is finally fertile. So basically, yet again, I don't know when the lambs are due.
I have two ewes waiting to pop out lambs. I've been staying up most of the night waiting for the lambs to pop out, but it's been two weeks of disrupted sleep. It's starting to wear me down. Yet, these ewes show all the
signs. They can hardly walk for the size of their udders, they show zero interest in the evening meal, often wandering off by themselves to rest away from the flock. Their lambs holes are looking saggy. Yet, by breakfast, they are back to their normal selves. Why don't they pop out their lambs already?
Let's talk about the signs. What tells you that the lamb is about to hatch?
What do you do to prevent so many sleepless nights during lambing season?