Obviously Sophia pushes them out faster than Bea.  She did have a kind of desperate look on her face when I let her in to the barn, almost as if to say, “These babies are gonna just fall out right here and now!”  Pretty cute that she wanted in though, what a smart mama.

This is what I found when I opened the stall door.  Obviously my ISO wasn’t bumped up enough yet, so pardon the blurred movement and poor quality.  I got excited.

We’ve got two black and white, two horned ram lambs.  Wyatt and Louis IV.  Louis IV is spoken for as we owe a ram lamb every year to the man who gave us our original flock way back when.  The man’s name is Lewis so for the sake of not having the lambs names being exactly alike, but keeping up with who’s who out in the pasture we name them Louis and have had three in the past, so now this is the fourth.

I told Sophia she should have waited for me so I could take pictures of her birthing process and this is what she told me.  Louis IV is on the right in this picture.

Wyatt is front and center here, a pretty marked little boy.  I was a little bummed to see Sophia have two boys this year though I shouldn’t, since she gave me two girls last year.  The first time we bred Sophia she had two boys sired by Dudley and they were gorgeous four horned, blue eyed guys and I made the rookie mistake of thinking they had to be wethers to eat them so wethered them at birth… Dumb mistake.  They would have been awesome breeding rams.  I’ve lived and learned though, and now keep most boys intact whether they will be in the freezer or not.

After I dipped the umbellical chords in the betedine and put a band on Wyatt’s tail, I moved Sophia to the 12×12 stall where she could continue cleaning them up.  After that I had to pick up the wet bedding and did a thorough pick through of both 12×24 stalls that the sheep sleep in every night.  The stall you see there to the right is where Sophia had her boys, under that bright window in the corner.

Of course my little helper was there.  She really does try and help me, her favorite is spreading our favorite stall dressing that dries and eats up ammonia too.

Annie wanted to show you what we use, Sweet PDZ, a horse stall freshener but works great for sheep too!  We use the granular kind and just sprinkle it over the stalls and it instantly takes away the smell and after airing a bit, the ground is dried too.  The nice thing is that it is completely safe, even Annie reaches her hands in and helps spread it around.

After we cleaned up, we checked on Sophia and the boys and all was well.  They were both nice and dry and Louis had settled down for a nap.  We also witnessed quite a bit of eating from both; which is always a wonderful thing to see!

Time to go back to the house for Annie’s nap.  “I got the door good and closed mama!” 

I told you she was a big helper.