Bodacious

by Suzanna Crampton

  As The Shepherd and I departed from the birthing shed, she remarked how it was, ‘So boring to birth backwards triplets. With such bad luck one might lose the second living lamb even after spinning it like a helicopter rotor.’

  While inside its mother’s uterus a lamb grows normally, floating around in a warm sea of fluid protecting it from potential bumps. The danger appears as the time of birth approaches. If a lamb has not sorted itself out to dive, front hooves first, with its head nestled at the knees, down the birth canal but is turned, to emerge hind legs first, the potential fatal inhaling of birth fluid is heightened. It will very likely die when it breathes in its birth fluid unless immediate preventive action is taken. Spinning a back-legs-first lamb like a helicopter propeller means holding its hind legs while swinging it in a circle. The centrifugal force of the spin pushes inhaled birth liquid out of its lungs. I strongly recommend that you duck away when the lamb is spun unless you don’t mind being sprayed by gloopy birth fluid that flies out of the lungs. Ovenmitt once got a right big gob of it in his face when he tried to help The Shepherd by batting at the front legs of a lamb with his paws as she swung it past the hay bale he sat on.

  When I returned later with The Shepherd to examine the lambs’ progress, we found the ram lamb standing up and looking for a suckle from The Great White Yoke. Unfortunately, our ewe lamb had not risen up – she was still collapsed and getting colder. We rubbed her vigorously again with straw. Then The Shepherd turned her over to help the ewe lamb suckle colostrum directly from her mother’s teat. She knelt behind the ewe and had the ewe’s woolly back leaning against her front. That way she had the ewe sit on her bottom with all her legs in the air. When held correctly, any ewe will relax into the person holding them. With one hand she laid the ewe lamb across that comfortable area of wool-less warm skin between our ewe’s back leg and stomach, so that the lamb’s head pointed towards her mother’s teats. She then reached around to gently pull one of the ewe’s teats to break the waxy seal and make sure milk would flow easily. Once this was done she brought her ewe lamb’s head towards the milky teat while holding the teat with her second hand. She worked her pinkie finger into the lamb’s mouth to open it to take in the teat. Once the teat was inserted into the lamb’s mouth, she helped the lamb by milking the teat directly into the lamb, who started swallowing right away. This would warm the baby ewe and give her strength to move her legs and stand on her own. She seemed better, so The Shepherd left again, but when she came back for the half-hour check, she found the lamb shivering. She placed a heat lamp nearby to warm her but still kept her close to her mother, The Great White Yoke.

  Later that night I came with The Shepherd for evening rounds and to check on our season’s first new lambs. Unhappily, we found our ewe lamb in a very bad way. She had just about stopped shivering, her mouth was stone cold and her breathing sounded like a death rattle. Hypothermia had set in. Only one more try at lifesaving treatment remained for her and for us. We had to warm her as quickly as possible. So we brought her into the kitchen and grabbed the nearest newspaper, which happened to be that week’s Irish Farmers Journal. We spread it over her as a blanket and we placed her in the warming oven of the Aga.

  We sat all night next the cooker warming the ‘Aga Lamb’. Oscar and I rotated our watch from the Aga top. He even slid into the oven to add his body heat to the baby ewe lamb’s and to boost her warming-up process.

  After a while we three noticed that the lamb had stopped shivering, even bleated a few times and tried to stand. But we popped her back in the oven because The Shepherd felt her mouth was still too cold.

  Sometime after 2 a.m. The Shepherd thought the lamb was going to live. She tucked the baby ewe into a dog cage full of straw bedding right next to the Aga. So off to bed The Shepherd went after she’d ushered both Oscar and myself outside into the icy-cold night air. We raced to the loose hay piled in the stable to stay warm and to watch for any stray rat or mouse to hunt or amuse ourselves with. ’Twas such a long night with not a mouse or a rat to entertain us. We had to wait till morning to see if our first ewe lamb of the season had outlived the night. Miraculously, she survived, thanks to our team’s care, which boded well for the rest of that year’s lambing season.

  We put our three heads together. What should we name her after our and her strenuous night’s labour? We decided we should call her Aggee, the Aga lamb, since into our heads bobbed up her purrfect nickname: Aggee. Still here on the farm, Aggee produces her own lambs every year. Aggee is the one grown-up ewe I greet with a gentle headbutt, as long as other ewes don’t show their jealousy when I show my favouritism.

  Now that we lamb in January, not that much has changed, but the first month of the year is that frightening time when the cycle of Schmallenberg virus (SBV) damage may become evident in the lambing flock. SBV is named after the beautiful German village of Schmallenberg, where the virus was first discovered. It causes deformities in newborn lambs or calves. I well recall the time I helped The Shepherd to birth an SBV-damaged lamb. It was late on a cold January night … this night was not just cold, but bitter icy cold. The wind even cut through my thick fur, so I was inside, cosily, with my coat fluffed, curled up in the barn’s pile of sweet-smelling hay with my eyes closed, listening for rodents stirring.

  I heard the back door to the farmhouse close and I wandered outside to see The Shepherd walking across the yard towards the sheep shed, her head bent against the wind. She huddled inside many layers of winter clothes. I inhaled the crisp air and it made me feel alive. The sky looked as if a cat like me had kneaded its claws in a black velvet cloth, leaving holes for starlight to leak through. I watched, yawned, stretched, wiped my face and then proceeded after her towards the sheep shed. Duty called.

  I caught up with The Shepherd just as she reached the first set of gates. I let her know that I was there, and that I could ably assist or give helpful instructions. As she opened the gate and walked through, I followed, chatting to her in my own language, which after so many years she understands. I informed her that no mice or rats had yet appeared this evening, but I’d come out with her to the lambing shed to see if any sheep were lambing. I had missed the earlier inspection, so I didn’t know that she’d already had her eye on a ewe that had given early warning signs that she might lamb later tonight.

  We arrived at the lambing shed and the sheep stirred. The Shepherd had left on the lights continuously rather than flicking lights on and off so as not to frighten the ewes if they were asleep. Besides, this lights-on at lambing time helps immensely with my hunting of rats and mice, making it doubly handy.

  We both spotted the ewe who was lambing and we instinctively knew something didn’t seem right. As I watched from outside the large lambing pen, I let The Shepherd know that she should move the ewe quietly into a small pen to make it easier for her to help the ewe to birth. As soon as she had the ewe penned, she went off to get the lambing bucket, which held all the necessary tools for complicated lambing. My instinct told me that we were in for a night of it, so I trotted over and sat in my favourite place in the corner of the pen. I put my back against the stone wall so that none of the other ewes could sneak up behind me to sniff and flooff with my tail, which they love doing but which annoys me very much.

  When The Shepherd brought the lambing bucket back, she stepped into the pen, quickly caught the lambing ewe and turned her on her side. The ewe was doing everything that we’d expect in a normal lambing: rapidly licking her lips in anticipation of cleaning her newborn lamb, stretching her neck and body, pushing and calling out with a strangled ‘baa’ as her natural lambing contractions began. As I watched this scene, The Shepherd said, ‘Yes, I know, I know; something is so not right, Bodacious.’

  As we were sheltered from direct wind in the lambing shed, The Shepherd took off her outer coat and draped it across the far corner of the pen, at some distance from me. I was annoyed because she didn’t think I might like to sit on it to keep it warm for her. I had to tell her off
, walking along the wooden pen fence to the corner and sitting on her warm coat. I managed to forget for a moment about the other ewes potentially sniffing my tail. These lambing events were far more important and possibly very complicated.

  Lambing can be a messy business, so reader beware – but The Shepherd and I have been doing it for so many years now that we’ve grown used to it and understand that it’s all part of a natural process. The life cycle exists in the sheep world, just as in the human. So, after putting lubrication gel all over her right hand, The Shepherd reached inside the ewe’s birthing passage and found it only partly widened for lamb birth.

  ‘Oh dear, Bodacious, this does not look good!!’ There was a deep sigh, then a grrrrrring sound from The Shepherd. Something had most definitely gone wrong.

  ‘Why, oh why, did it have to be this sheep?’ she said. This was a ewe of high quality and new to my flock. It came to us pregnant by a ram unrelated to any other sheep here on the farm. We wanted to strengthen our breeding programme by producing offspring unrelated to our other ewes, so we hoped it would have at least one ram lamb. This would help broaden the genetic mix and improve my flock of purebred sheep.

  The Shepherd explored inside the ewe’s uterus with her hand, trying to find a way to help pull the lamb out. She massaged the entranceway to widen the opening to where the lamb lay inside. This took time because The Shepherd must pull as the ewe pushes, the two working in tandem to stimulate further dilation and widen the passage for the lamb to come out. She began to peel off layers of clothing as her work became more intense. Her stripped-off clothes accumulated as she threw them in a pile in the corner of the pen.

  Ovenmitt decided to make his appearance then and rubbed himself along the outside edge of the pen, where The Shepherd was at work. I moved across to warm her pile of stripped clothes and told Ovenmitt to take over the coat-warming duties. At this stage, even in the bitter cold and with the wind that whistled outside the shed, The Shepherd had stripped down to a plain black T-shirt. Sweat poured from her brow as she strained to pull the lamb from the ewe. Something seemed seriously wrong. The Shepherd muttered about calling a neighbouring shepherd for help but it was now 1.30 in the morning and she thought better of it. She knew that if she really needed help, she could ask one of several local farmers or shepherds. They would drive straight here as soon as they’d pulled on their clothes, but The Shepherd hated to have to wake people up in lambing season when sleep was scarce for all.

  I stretched, yawned and gave encouraging chat from my comfortable position. By this I don’t mean talking like humans. That would be silly. I merely meowed at the correct time and offered general, catlike encouragement. Ovenmitt had far less sense, quite naturally, being something of an idiot at his immature inexperienced age. He jumped down into the pen repeatedly to ‘help’ with the strenuous business of birthing the lamb. The Shepherd was not best pleased as she was in the midst of a major struggle helping this lamb out. Ovenmitt has yet to learn that you let the human underlings do all the hard work and then take all the credit for yourself. He still tries to lend a paw during a lamb’s birth.

  I once saw Ovenmitt suffer something I have never experienced, a unique but harmless misfortune. Last winter, when he tried to assist The Shepherd in birthing a lamb, the ewe broke her water all over him. The Shepherd nearly collapsed laughing at him as he scarpered, soaked with birthing fluid, across the pen. He finally paused in the middle of the lambing shed to inspect the damage and commenced to lick his coat clean. A second ewe, close to lambing herself, came up to him and began to help him clean himself by licking him with great enthusiasm. What a surprised look there was on Ovenmitt’s face as the ewe licked him firmly between his ears on top of his head. That sent The Shepherd into more gales of laughter. She had to grasp tightly onto the fence so that she wouldn’t fall over. Our Shepherd loves to laugh and she claimed Ovenmitt gave her the best excuse of that week.

  Now, though, there was no reason for laughter. ‘What is wrong with this lamb?’ she sighed in frustration. She had held her leg in an awkward position that kept the ewe lying down while she manipulated and pulled. Now she gave her leg a good stretch of relief.

  In a normal lambing the first thing you see after the big bag of birthing fluid bursts is the lamb’s two front toes emerging, as if it is diving out to begin life. Then both hooves follow, then fetlocks, then legs. The tip of the lamb’s muzzle, often with its tongue sticking out, rests snugly on the forelegs. Sometimes the lamb sticks in the birth passage if its head is too big or if the ewe hasn’t fully dilated. These stuck lambs needed a mighty downward pull from The Shepherd. You will hear the ewe call out at the discomfort at the start of the pull, but when the rest of the lamb slides out with no bother, the pleased new mother gets to work immediately, enthusiastically licking clean her new lamb.

  The Shepherd continued to struggle with birthing the lamb. She pulled, heaved and manipulated the lamb slowly. The ewe was now lying on her side, exhausted; The Shepherd no longer had to hold her down. The ewe panted between contractions. Despite the bitterly cold night The Shepherd dripped streams of sweat and wiped her brow on the sleeve of her T-shirt.

  ‘I can’t straighten this lamb’s legs. They just won’t budge. It’s like they are locked in place and won’t bend,’ she told me. At this stage both her arms were covered in birthing goo and lubricant gel with hints of birthing blood – all of this was so far perfectly normal except for this lamb’s poor jammed legs. When the birth canal fully dilated, The Shepherd reached inside the uterus and looped a strong clean string around the frozen front limbs of the lamb. She then worked the legs and head down the birthing canal, gave a massive pull and heave, and the lamb was born.

  We all inspected it, closely. We knew immediately that with care it would not live long. All its limbs were bent and would not move. Its head was deformed and it was missing an eye. One rear leg was back to front.

  ‘Oh, no, not another Schmallenberg lamb!’ sighed the exhausted sweat-soaked Shepherd. A lamb that contracted this virus was an unmitigated disaster.

  The exhausted ewe lay still panting from the traumatic labour but glad it was over. After a minute or two she turned her head slowly, looked back to her barely living, badly damaged lamb and muttered a motherly welcome. All evening she had looked forward to seeing her lamb, circling around, looking for it as her waters broke, but this lamb would live only three minutes before its breathing and beating heart stopped. The bitterly cold winter night would not have time to chill the life out of this newborn. If a lamb is stillborn, a ewe will clean it and paw at it to try to revive it and provoke it to stand up, but once the surrounding air has cooled the dead body, the ewe will abandon it. Many times I have seen ewes abandon lambs that are not well or emerged deformed at birth. The ewe knows instinctively that the lamb will not survive and she prefers to leave it to die quietly. If the lamb, despite its disabilities, manages to stand, the ewe will often push it away from her healthy twin lamb and not allow the disabled lamb to nurse. The ewe acts purely instinctively. She knows that she must look after the healthy lamb and in order to be efficient she must allow the other to die.

  Dejected, The Shepherd rose slowly, leaned over to pick up the now-dead lamb and stepped over the pen’s wooden gate. She let the ewe lie quietly to recover from her marathon struggle. I lay quite cosy, still warming her clothes. I could be sad at the death of the lamb, but it’s nature’s way. The cycle of birth and death continues whether I wish it to or not.

  Ovenmitt jumped down as The Shepherd reached for her coat to protect herself from the chill night air. She left the shed, but soon returned with some antibiotics to protect the ewe from infection, dosed her with a vitamin mineral tonic, and brought her fresh water and hay. This ewe would not receive an orphan lamb to nurse because she had such an arduous time lambing. She would be dried off and fed low-protein food to stop her producing the milk that would have fed a normal lamb. When she recovered sufficiently, she would be sent out to live with
the younger yearling ewes, called hoggets, for the rest of the winter.

  Now all was done and it was after 2 a.m. The tired sad Shepherd, re-clothed in winter woollies, walked back to the farmhouse. My place on the fence was no longer warm with her clothes to sit on. I wandered back to the stable to curl up in the sweet summer-smelling hay. Ovenmitt trotted after The Shepherd, chatting away about the night’s events. He hoped she would let him into the kitchen to curl up next to the warm Aga, but I knew she wouldn’t allow him in. Pure wishful thinking on his part, but Ovenmitt was ever hopeful. Soon he would join me in the stable hay to curl up for a cosy night out of the bitter winter wind. Perhaps a passing mouse would provide some sport while we waited for dawn and breakfast.

  The next morning, after the ewes with fresh lambs in the mothering pens had been fed, watered and checked, the lambing shed inspected and all the other sheep fed, I curled up on top of the Aga to thaw out. I listened with an ear twitch as crow calls replaced the earlier noise of sheep baaaaing for breakfast. Crows chattered, pecked and fought among themselves around feed troughs in the field as they found those few grains that the sheep had missed. The Shepherd sat staring at her mug of tea, eyes glazed with exhaustion. Out of my half-closed eyes I could tell it was a good clean kind of exhaustion from long hours and hard work.

  13

  A Mucky Month

  February marks the anniversary of my arrival at Black Sheep Farm and my early days curled up in front of the Aga. In Irish lore it is also considered to be the first month of spring, although with the bitter winds, sleet and bare trees, I beg to differ.