Lambing

The weather is horrid and not at all suitable for lambing.  Luckily it is only the 7 Southdowns who are due, the rest are due next Thursday onwards.  Two have now lambed - both dramas.  The first was a mini drama but happened at 10 in the late evening - not ideal in the dark.  Those twins are now doing fine but the latest one to lamb was not good.  Again it was late with the water bag appearing at 1 in the morning after a long time of restlessness - well what counts for restless for my Southdowns who are incredibly lazy sheep.  Little progress was made until 2am when the water bag broke but then nothing else.  Luckily, we had put her in a pen and Carl had rigged me up a light on a car battery so I had some chance of seeing what was happening.  Investigations showed a head jammed against the pelvis with one leg just forward behind the head but locked at the joint.  The worst was I could feel the tongue out and swollen.  The other leg took a while to find and proved to be further back pointing forward but again locked at the hip.  I managed to get the rope on one leg and manoeuvre that forward then crossed it over and wiggled until I could pull the other leg forward.  I was pretty sure it had to be dead by now and it was very dry but we kept going until the front bits were all out and then it slowly opened one eye and stared at me!  I got a bit of a spurt on - it was a big lamb but then Mum closed her eyes and appeared to expire - poor thing was loosing blood.  This led to a 10 second panic as I tried to work out which one to try to save first but to cut a long story short both have survived,  Mum didn't get up for a couple of hours and lamb couldn't suck - I think his tongue was too big so he had two lots of stomach tubing.  I think all is now well - Mum is fine and likes her lamb but Lamb is a bit odd.  Possibly he is blind in one eye - I may have poked him while getting him out - or it may be that he is a little brain damaged.  She is now drinking from Mum so we should be alright even if she is always a bit dippy.  No pictures at the moment!