Fleecy and the rotten lambs

I noticed half a lamb hanging from its mother this afternoon, tail first. I was not able to catch the ewe by myself, so my friend Olivia and our collie Fen rounded her up and caught her.

The lamb was completely black. Archie later informed me that this meant that the lamb would have died a while ago. Certainly its back legs were pretty gelatinous.

Olivia was brilliant and pulled the lamb out straight away. It was stillborn and its stomach was distended. There was a twin inside the ewe but neither of us could feel its second leg.

Archie pulled it out later but it was also black and stillborn. The second lamb did not have a rib cage and was not fully formed sadly.

Pain relief and penicillin were administered to the ewe.

In other lambing news, one of the Romney ewes had triplets today. One of the triplets has deformed joints unfortunately and is unlikely to ever walk properly. We took her back with us to bottle feed her as we were concerned that she would be left behind by her mother. I called her Fleecy (she is the fluffy white lamb in the dog basket in the photo). We are hoping to try and work with the deformity to encourage her to use her legs properly.