New Lamb-"Miss Rose" and her friends....

Well, here is another new baby girl...we have named her "Miss Rose" after our daughter Nalani Rose.  Nalani was named after her grandmother, Rosella, and when she was young, we called her Miss Rose because she was such a little lady.  She dressed herself from such a young age, and would have things matching, socks pulled up well and neatly, hair just so-so neat for a young toddler!.  That little 3 year old, did all of that herself!  So being the little lady, we slowly called her "Miss Rose".

This sheep is about 3 weeks old.  So far she is doing wonderful.  She is the oldest of the four sheep,so for once Miss Rose-(Nalani) is older than her older sister!  ;) 

Here is another photo of her below!

Here are the other lambs:  

This is the twin to Tezzy and we have yet to name this one.  Its a boy.

And this one hiding behind its mother, is the newest one, a girl, that also needs a name!  

She is now doing well, it is the one we had to work with to get the mom and baby together, bonding.  Thankfully all is working out!

Baby Tezzy goes to town!

Its been a very very busy weekend!  Lambing continues.  We had a second baby lamb and the mother began by rejecting it, but with work-and patience-Scott was able to get the mother to bond with the baby.

Tezzy, well we still take care of her.  Her she is in her box, in the back of the pick up truck to go to town with us.  We needed more lamb milk, and many areas are out of it during this time of the year...(lambing season) so after calling around yesterday to find a store with some, today we had to go get the milk 

re-placer.

We were going to be gone too long for her, she would need to be fed so we took her along.  Scott carried her out, box and all.  I packed the 'diaper bag'.  2 diapers, with the X cut in at the 6th diamond design down from the top of the diaper in the back, for the tail.  Then the wet wipes.  And finally a bottle.  I am an experienced mom after all, so I can pack light  ( as a first time mom I took everything along but the kitchen sink when we would go away).

To town we went.  First Scott and I stopped for a bite to eat, and Tezzy slept.  We did not take her in with us, and since we got it to go-we were not in there long!

Then to Rural King.  Scott got a cart as I headed off for the landscaping area, wanting to check out the trees for sale.  I found 2 I wanted to purchase, so we would need a second cart.  One for the items we were buying and one for Tezzy.

Here she is in the cart....

She attracted a bit of attention!  Lots of children came up with their parents....all wanting to see her

Even the staff was interested in  seeing her!  They said they have dogs come in (we have been there when that has happened) and once a calf, along with a few other animals.  But this was their first lamb coming in!  

We arrived back home, and her 'sister' Tezzy (aka Anastasia) came over after work to pick her up.   She will spend the week watching her for me!  THANKFULLY!!! 

Cause its gonna be a busy week!

New Baby-Tezzy

Scott with the little lamb-Tezzy

Well lambing season is here.  We have had 4 so far, the first one I already told you about, and the second one, did not survive-and sadly, neither did her mother.  The third one was from a mother, one of the older moms (when I say older she is at least 3 years old), and she had a little boy.  Yesterday I came home to do a appointment at the office, and heard a little lamb.  We do have two of them in the barn, in what we call the nursery, so I figured it was one of them.

When they deliver, we put them in a stall-the mother and baby-like a nursery-for a couple of weeks.  This is so we can watch them and be sure of their health.

After the appointment I checked in the barn, and the mother who had just delivered a day or so ago, was not in the barn, neither was the baby.  But there was a placenta close to the area she would have been in.  I looked out in the pasture I saw her with her baby.  The sound was coming from way out in the back of the pasture. Looking out that way, I saw a small lamb, wobbling along.  It was walking but very wobbly and finally just tripped and then stayed down.  So I had to walk out to get her.  I put her in the barn by the placenta, and waited.  That one mother came in, who already had a baby, sniffed her, and acted like she wanted to care for her, but then was spooked and left.  (I had someone with me.  the sheep did not know her and they ---the sheep--if they do not know someone that might be in the barn, they do not want to come around for that reason)  Sheep are VERY shy around people they do not know.  The flock knows me--but knows my husband better.  He is the main one who cares for them, so for me---will follow me if they are very hungry and I am carrying hay!  But for my husband, they will follow him around in the barn and barn yard much easier.

Well that mother did not come back in as long as this other person was there, would not, so I wanted to get out of the barn right away, take care of the baby ---so maybe the mother sheep would calm down and wonder where her baby was.....  I took the baby into the house and waited for hubby-whom I had already texted about this new born lamb.  He called about a half an hour later and said he was on the way home.  

When he got home, we tried to get that mother to accept the baby but she was not gonna have anything to do with her. We had missed the window of opportunity.  We even double checked the other females to be sure maybe one of the younger females had not delivered her...but no such luck.  This mother, must have a double uterus.  Two wombs would allow her to carry two different babies (twins sort of) but in different uterus's and deliver on different days.  This is actually why some farms where they allow people to observe the daily activities and births, will have you in a room with one way glass....so the animals can not see 'strangers' cause it really effects how they respond to the babies.  I do think that is what happened.  My fault, I should have had that person just not come into the barn.  That mother was trying to take care of the baby at first, until she saw a stranger in and around the flock.  Observing sheep really lets you understand scriptures better too....for stuff like this!

So now I have a little lamb in my home.  This little one requires feedings about every 3 hours for the first 24 hours, then about every 3-4 hours for the next several days.  It should be ok, cause unless I have someone deliver a baby (human) today, I am home for most of the day.  Gotta leave for a few hours, but then I am here so this little one will eat on schedule!  Then tomorrow Scott is home, and for the weekend he is here-so this little one should have a good start.  But, its gonna be a long few weeks!  

We could only get her to nurse for a about a minute.  Not sure if the mother let the baby nurse right after the birth or not, hopefully she did.  If this little one did not get any colostrum, that can be a real problem!  Baby lambs and goats have died from not getting colostrum even with regular bottle feedings.  It is so important. So even thought she is doing ok so far, I never know.  Today while I am gone, I am going to try to get some from either a farmer (cows or goats would be great) or if they sell it frozen in a farm store.  In the past, with out it, even bottle feeding babies, we have lost them if they do not get the colostrum.  If only humans realized how important this first milk was.  I feel so sorry for babies who only are bottle fed.  The little ones NEED colostrum!  It is about life!  I do not think we even know all of the benefits yet of this first precious milk.  

Mean while we will care for her in the house...trying our best.  OH by the way, her name comes from our daughters nick name-since she was born on her birthday----

Tezzy-named after Anastasia, sharing the same birthday....March 7th

New Babies

Well over the past few weeks we have had a total of 6 baby lambs born to 4 moms so that means 2 sets of twins!

The first mom was a good mom, and took care of her babies well.  The second two moms, were new mommas and needed a little encouragement, but did well once the bonding began.

This third momma -also a first time momma, delivered before we got her into her own little stall(although the other two new mommas did this too and they became good mommas anyway).  We find that if they are not off on their own, in their own stall, they really struggle with being a great mom.  The herd will tend to the babies, drying them and all, but only the mother can feed them!  If her time alone with the babies is interrupted, then she struggles with the fact of being a mother.

This last mother was doing just that.  We did force her to hold still so the babies could  nurse and get some colostrum, but she would not cooperate her self, and allow them to nurse.  We left them alone for a couple of hours, hoping that would work (sometimes that does) but for her, it did not.  She continued to kick at the babies, push them away (harmfully) with her nose, walk on them, so the babies were officially rejected.  Into the house they must come!

That means artificially feeding them...when the next mother delivers, and if she has only one baby, we might be able to get her to accept one of the babies, (we have to be there when she births, and use the placenta to rub onto the baby so the baby would have her scent-sometimes that will work)

What a long night!  I think I got more rest feeding my babies at night than I did with these lambs!  But finally after midnight they were satisfied, and settled down for the night.  I still had to get up and try to feed them every couple of hours, so not much sleep.  But they are doing ok so far.

It sure is easier when the mother does the work!  But this also shows how very important it is that the bonding process is NOT interrupted ~!  I think that (from what I have seen) even the first time mothers, do well when they are left alone, not bothered by humans or other animals!

Right now our cat Todd is bigger than these lambs are!  The two in the house are twins-a boy, (the black one-called Ink) and the girl-(the white one-called Page).

Well-soon hopefully they will be out running in the pasture with the herd, in the spring on new grass!

Babies Born On The Farm!!

well, over the weekend we had a baby goat added to the keeslar farm list of new babies!

Sally, is a first time mom, did a great job-an 'unattended birth' which means no medical intervention!! Imagine that, in this so called high tech world with the way we birth both animals and humans here in America...

This little guys name is??? we have not yet named him...

He was doing just fine for the first few hours, then became chilled. 

So Scott brought him in, and we gave him a mixture of colostrum from the momma...then by finger, gave him some molasses, and Karo syrup, and later a few dropper fulls of strong coffee...along with continued colostrum from momma, and he really perked up.  He enjoys sitting by the fire, watching the flames!  

 

This morning we took him back out to mom to nurse, although we have been milking her and giving him the milk, it is always best to keep babies with their mommas.

 

He did nurse, but then after about 45 minutes of being outside, become chilled, so we again brought him inside. 

He is getting around checking things out, here he is below looking at the fan...

  

The cats do not want anything to do with him. 

As it gets warmer around here, the other wild animals come out, and last night a coon got 4 of our chickens, killing them.  We are now down to 20, so we will be getting some new chickens soon, come spring.  Not happy with the coons, they may need to eat, but there is enough wild animals out there for them, like rats!

Twins on the Keeslar Farm!!!

Tonight we have just come in from the barn after the delivery of twin lambs...Scott and I had went down to our oldest daughters home to help them with moving a couch they had just purchased (using our truck) and then we decided to go out to eat (just Scott and I).  We took our time, enjoying the evening...and upon arrival to home when Scott went out to do the evening chores, he saw that one of our sheep had delivered...so lambing season is now upon us here at the Keeslar Farm!

Two twin girls, that we might call salt and pepper for fun...!!!  Not really sure yet.   We are not sure if she is finished yet or not, so I will go out in a few hours and check.  We have one more female that is expecting for sure, but not sure about the other two females at this time.  This gives our small herd up to 6 females now, and depending upon what the other has, up to 8-9 females.  Then by next year, if each has 2 more babies, our goal is hopefully by 2-3 years to have up to 25-35 females and begin a special farm -having organic meat, herbs, fruit and vegetables.  (well we prob will not go with the certification of being organic, just because of the mess the government is in right now with that, but we do not use pesticides, hormones, at all.  So will be unofficially organic)

Here are some of the photos!

 

Here is the first born...a female, "pepper"

Here is the second born, a female..."salt"  

With momma...

finding nourishment from Mom....

The two together....

Baby lambs!

Here are 2 of our baby lambs that were born this last late jan. (we had twins from two different mothers.)
They are like kittens and puppies, very cute to watch and deal with when they are little!
We inherited three large sheep for a (partial) exchange for a birth I did for an Amish family, two were going to have babies we were told, but they had no idea of when....January is NOT the time to be lambing!
They both had twins, the problem is we did not know when to expect them, so the very first one that delivered, the first little baby was lost to freezing temperatures. After that, with hair dryers out there to help warm the new little ones until they were well under way...then a heat lamp inside the barn, to have an area of where they could keep warm. This last winter was very very cold!