I gotta BAA'd feeling about this

The long awaited (for us anyway) lambing has occurred. 🐑  And it happened in no way, shape or form that we could have possibly guessed or imagined. We have been down this lambing road before. Lambing is not necessarily new to us - but what happened in this particular lambing process was - and was an example of the precarities of farm life. We've learned over and over that you can never ever ever guess what's about to happen next...... 

I think there should be special therapy for people with farms. Crazy things happen, unexpected things, and it's life and death constantly with The Circle of Life always trying to prove itself around here. I think the only other place I can think that people may experience similar strange and unusual things happening as often as we do around here is maybe at a nursing home. I digress. Lambing.

It was early Sunday morning, March 5th, that I hear David holler in the house, "There's a lamb on the ground!" Turns out, before we had even stepped out the door to go feed the animals in the barn, David had noticed a sheep with a lamb out in the pasture while glancing out the window. And with that, we race out the door to see who’s birthing and scurry outside to find Belle who’s given birth to a lamb in the pasture. It's early in the morning and the coolness brings the need for us to get Belle to one of the shelters near her, along with her new lamb. But before we can even do this, she has another lamb. But I assure you, as soon as we could manage, we corralled Belle inside the barn (out in the back pasture) for her safety and protection from the weather (cool wind) so her brand new, wet twins could stay warm. 

Twins though! This in itself is concerning to us because last time Belle had twins, she would only feed one of them and "kicked off" the other lamb. We were hoping for a better result this time. 

A boy and a girl 💙💖

Just another day,
out in the pasture,
 giving birth to twins

I'm happy to report that this time, Belle allowed both lambs to nurse and readily accepted both. What a relief that was. We love bottle feeding lambs, but it is a lot of work and time. And really it's best if a ewe can feed her own lambs, and this she did. All day Sunday we enjoyed watching Belle with her 2 babies. She cleaned them, loved them, nursed them, licked them and stayed close to them. We had placed Belle and her 2 lambs in a stall in the back barn with food, water and straw where they would stay for a couple of days until everyone was strong enough to get out and about on their own. 

In the warmth and safety of the barn

Also, one of our concerns this lambing period was our young livestock guard dogs, Dutch and Penny, who have not been on the farm when we've had baby lambs before. How would they react? Turns out, they did wonderfully. They (esp Dutch) laid beside the barn stall and watched and protected Belle and her twins - instantly. They are amazing livestock guard dogs, even at such a young age. We are so blessed to have them as Whisper and Levi age. All 4 LGD's knew that the sheep and lambs would need increased protection from predators. How fortunate we are to have them all.

Brooks named the girl, Purple, and
the boy, Red

It seems to take very little time for these little ones to get up and about. 

Then, as Sunday came and went with 2 new lambs who were doing wonderfully, Monday morning arrived. Before work on Monday morning (which I am to be there at 6 am) I spent the early, early morning hours going to check on Belle and her lambs in their stall in the back barn, as well as the other 2 sheep, Willow and Lulu who were in the main barn. Belle and her babies were doing great. I then checked and noticed that Willow was now in labor, in the main barn. How exciting! More lambs today, I'm thinking. 

David and I have both been concerned about the amount of weight that Willow has gained in her pregnancy. She's a smaller size sheep anyway, but the amount of weight she has on her seems unusual. And now, here she is in labor. I felt like something was "off" when I saw here early Monday morning (around 4:30-5:00 am) but I wasn't able to say exactly what it was. Something just seemed wrong, yet nothing looked wrong, at this point. Okay, I think to myself, just head into work and David will be at the farm today to keep an eye on Willow and her labor. 

So, I wake up David before I leave for work and tell him that Willow is in labor and I leave for the day. 

At 7:06 am, David sends me a video of Willow still in labor. That's odd, I think, as it's been since probably around 4 am (or earlier?!) that Willow begin this. And now she's still laboring. 

David texts me it's "first time mama" kind of thing, and I'm at work getting a little worried about this situation. 

Another update from David....it's a video of Willow at 8:02 am when he checked on her. She's still in labor and I'm concerned. I then start doing the only thing I can do remotely......sending links about lamb birthing. It makes me feel better. 

At 9:08 am, I get another video that feet are now showing, which seemed like good news at first. Yet, somehow I'm concerned because she's not given birth yet and it's been such a long time. I'm at work feeling helpless and trying to seemingly help him by texting websites to refer to - in order to possibly help Willow, if needed.

It's during this time somewhere that this event goes from labor and feet showing...............to............uh oh, somethings terribly wrong. 

And David starts scrambling to make a plan and find help. He knows Gina is on the land next door to us, whose the only person close by.

I am texting my concerns to David, along with lamb birthing website links in case David needs to pull the legs out to help Willow. I text him information about birthing complications, and other seemingly relevant information because it makes me feel like I'm helping. But I know I just need to stop texting and let him/them figure things out.

While I am now rambling via text, David is trying to figure out what to do. Then, David texts me and asks me to call him. Uh oh. So, I ask another nurse to step into the OR for me while I step out to call David. And sure enough, things are truly going sideways for Willow and David. David said the feet coming out of Willow are the back legs and that the lamb is breech. He tells me he's going to try and get Gina (who’s on the land next to ours tending to a hurt cow) and see if she can help him. Side note: Gina is on the pasture land next door and coincidentally, whom we have also been helping her with a lame cow who has a baby calf. David and I had spent a fair amount of time with Gina the day before, on Sunday afternoon, getting her cow and calf in a corral so that a vet can come sometime during the week and see about the cow's foot. Now, the very next day, Monday, David is asking for Gina's help with our sheep. Did I mention farm life goes hand-in-hand with therapy? David has elicited the help from Gina who does indeed try to pull the lamb out but cannot do so. 

There's text after text that David is sending me sporadically with updates and videos. While I'm texting back things that make me feel better and help him not at all. All this is happening while we are also having grass delivered that day (2 pallets) and a gate repairman by the name of Buddy, coming to fix our front gate - yes, that same morning/day. It was like a 3 ring circus. 

The most important issue at hand though is that Willow is in distress and the only choice for her survival is to get her to a vet  - and quickly. 

Mind you, I took the truck to work that day, and David now needs a truck with a hitch to attach our trailer to. If he can even get a truck to use, he'll need to have someone help him load the sheep transport heavy-$ss cage on the trailer, and then get Willow in it somehow with the legs of her lamb hanging out her behind. And then drive to the vet with Willow in that situation. I could only say a pray for Willow and her lamb(s) and hope they make it through this. 

As you can imagine, there's soooooo much behind the information I'm getting via text. Ex: David trying to borrow a truck, call the vet, load the cage, load Willow, try to help her birth, and the other thousand things that are actually happening when there's a birthing emergency like this. Time is a critical factor. 

Now, I wait. I go quiet on text. I wait to hear what's happening. And then this update comes from David.....

Dr Shelton has literally pulled out with his own arm and hand up Willow's woo-hoo, while David is pulling the other direction on Willow, a deformed and bloated deceased lamb. Willow could have never birthed this on her own. Not only did Dr Shelton have to pull so hard that the head of the deceased lamb broke off and stayed inside of Willow, which meant Dr Shelton would have to go back in (this is all through Willow's woo-hoo) and pull out the head. Then, Dr Shelton went back in with his arm and hand and reached in and searched for any other lambs inside Willow. Sure enough, she had another lamb in her, so he grabbed that lamb and pulled it out her woo-hoo. The second lamb was a normal lamb but unresponsive. I can imagine the trauma it's gone through and the distress it must have been in. But Dr Shelton worked on the little lamb and was able to get it to breathe. It was a sheep and lamb miracle. Both Willow and her 1 lamb survived it all. Dr Shelton said he does not see things like this often, and that the deformed lamb inside Willow had been growing and taking on fluid which was making it huge - too huge for her to birth. Without him, none of them would have survived. 

Please don’t click on these videos if blood and birthing things makes you queasy:

The two bloppy objects on the right, on the trailer, were what Dr Shelton pulled out of Willow. A deformed lamb, brought out in 2 pieces. Not for the faint of heart. 

And the lamb survives….

David would name her Angel

This is all so easy for me to report my side of this day, this emergency and this miracle. I was not there and am giving you the information second hand. But it's David whose endured this miracle and tragedy. He's endured the stress of it all and trying to get Willow somewhere where she could be helped by a vet. There were so many moving parts of this day - all while I'm at work.

So, with that said, David is also sharing his story from that day. The one person who witnessed it all. Who made all the puzzle pieces fit just right, in the correct amount of time, so that this had a positive and marvelous result. David made it all happen - in the timeframe needed. As Dr Shelton said, 'Willow only had about another hour'.  Let's hear from David.........

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Cyndi and I had finished Sunday night as we often do, talking about the events of the day, and summarizing what were the upcoming events for the next week. Monday had two events scheduled, 1) A delivery of 2 pallets of sod for our front yard, and 2) our fencing and gate guy (Buddy) was going to stop by and assess our front gate. Buddy does great work but tends to work on his schedule rather than yours, so I was unsure when he would arrive, but I knew it would be that day. So no big deal going into this beautiful Monday morning. I awoke to Cyndi letting me know there was something 'new' on the schedule. Willow was in labor!! Cyndi told you our concerns about Willow, her extra weight and smaller stature were not a good combination for a first-time Mama. So I got dressed and headed out to the barn to see where Willow was and how she was doing. It was around 6 AM and I checked her before the coffee was done. She was out in the barn in a safe area. There was not a lot going on since she was not actively in labor that I could tell. She was walking around just looking very uncomfortable, but she had been doing that for the past two weeks so I was not alarmed. 

My attention then turned to the neighbors cow (her name is 13) and her new baby calf. Now 13 had her son a little over a week ago. Our guard dogs were making regular visits over to see 13 and her son, especially during the evening to keep the coyotes at bay. Did Cyndi tell you that our Great Pyrenees guard dogs are the best? Well they are. They take care of our animals as well as the neighbors animals, particularly when there are babies around. They love to be the first ones to check out the new babies of all kinds. They will come up and smell, nuzzle and sometimes lick the newborns (much to their Mother's dislike)! It's like they want to smell and register these new lives as part of the herd and recognize them as a new 'something' added to their list of responsibilities. This is not a meal or a stranger, but a little being that needs to be guarded very closely for awhile!!  Anyway, I had helped pen 13 and her baby in a small corral the day before because 13 had a serious hoof injury that was preventing her from grazing normally and had her laying down much of the day.  Normally this would not be too serious but it had been going on for a few days and we were all concerned that the calf was not getting enough milk. So I brought hay over from our farm to put in the pen and hustled off to find water for her. The Gentry's barn was locked up tight but there was a trough on the side of the barn, so I went back to the pen and found a 5 gallon bucket and proceeded to haul two buckets of water over to them (about 150 yards over to the pen). This all took time, and that was a precious commodity this morning. I left the Gentry's feeling pretty good about the state of the cattle and scurried back over to our place, hopping the fence and bee-lining it to our barn to check out Willow. Then, maybe if I 'm lucky, I can get to that cup of coffee I'd been thinking about since 5:30!

Willow had moved over to the other side of her stall and was laying down. She was having some contractions and just looked miserable. I was not alarmed at all because she seemed to be making progress, although slowly, in the right direction. I vowed to check on her regularly throughout the morning and then updated Cyndi with a msg around 7 (Willow is good and progressing, nothing yet). Where is that coffee? I sip on my cup of coffee and feel pretty good about the status of things, I wonder where exactly we should have the grass pallets unloaded to make it the easiest for us to place them later in the day, and try to remember the specific instructions I was to give to Buddy about what kind of gate we were looking for, what our expectations were from him and a couple of other hot items Cyndi had mentioned to me the night before. Cyndi had given Buddy my number, so I waited for his call and decided to clean the barn while I waited on Willow to get serious about lambing. While I walked back out to the barn I saw Gina Gentry our neighbor drive up to their property and park. I'm sure she was there to check on 13 and her baby. I knew they were doing well, so I moved on. When I got back to the barn, there was definitely some action going on! Willow had moved around again and there were two little pink hooves barely sticking out her woo-hoo! This was great news since she had been in labor for several hours and once they start crowning like this, it's usually pretty quick when they start having the lamb. Two hooves, a nose, a head and the shoulders followed by big "swoosh", and viola, a gangly little wet lamb and a big mess! I was ready, but Willow just kept moving around, trying to lay in the right position, find a soft spot, or get to a shady spot in the stall. She was constantly moving and I tried to calm her with some sweet talking and refilling her water pail just in case. I finished sweeping out the barn lightly and then headed in to the house for another cup of black gold! 

By now it was nearly 9 and I walked back out to the barn to check on Willow. She had a little more of the legs sticking out, but not much more. That's when I noticed that the legs had shifted positions and the joints were now facing the wrong way. They were bending backwards from the direction they should be bending if we were going to see a tiny black nose soon, and that's when the proverbial $hit hit the fan! 

I texted Cyndi that the lamb looked like it was in a breech position and I knew I needed some help to get this corrected quickly. I called the Gunter vet and asked if Dr. Shelton could help with this lamb. Now they are not an emergency veterinarian, and they also always had a full schedule of double bookings. The nice gal who answered my call said she would talk to the doctor and see what he suggested. While I was waiting, my phone was receiving lots of advice and YouTube links from Cyndi on how to help lambs in distress. I was mentally reviewing where I might find my sterile gloves (BBQ gloves magically turned into delivery room gloves)! The receptionist from Dr. Shelton returns to the phone and, to my amazement, says.... "Dr. Shelton says you can bring her in and he can probably turn the lamb around without much trouble"! Say no more, I'm there!! Except for a few little items.... 

Cyndi had taken the truck to work, leaving me with the Tesla. This would normally not be a problem, but in my mind's eye, I couldn't see how Willow would fit into the Tesla, even with a trunk and a frunk, there was no way she was going to fit, let alone deliver a lamb and placenta in my car. Even if that could happen, there was no way I was getting her into the car on my own! So I had a trailer and hoped we still had the large cage for transporting livestock. I vaguely remembered giving that metal cage to some friends of the family because they seemed to need it worse than we did and they are good friends. I found myself wandering around to the back of the barn to see if it were still there. Good news, it's still there!! 

Now...... a truck! Who has a truck that lives very close to us? I don't have 30-45 minutes to drive to get a truck, I need one now and immediately think to call Anthony, a good friend of mine in Celina (aka 15 minutes away!).  I received another text from Cyndi titled "How to handle breech births" YouTube attached (15:28 minutes! I don't have that much time). I know she is worried and also has operating rooms she's tending to herself during all this!

Anthony picks up the phone, exchanges pleasantries and I interrupt him mid-sentence, "Hey man, can I borrow your truck?" He says he'd be happy to loan it to me but he is having battery problems this morning and it is not running..... $hit! He suggests calling Angela whose spouse, Paul has a truck and lives in Gunter (12 minutes away). I hang up and call Angela. She answers and says I can borrow their truck but that they are not at home right now. They are in Sherman (20 minutes away) taking care of her Mom. She then says that her son is at the house and she will ask him to put the truck keys in the truck and I can just go get it!

Text from Cyndi with several links to websites with lots of lamb birthing pointers and procedures. I could not watch them because nothing seemed exactly applicable while speeding over to Angela's to borrow Paul's truck! 

I check on Willow again, she is still moving around very uncomfortably and I can see that the hooves and some of the legs are out. The legs look very pink and puffy. That's not right. I rush to go get the truck. I get there in no time flat and grab the truck, leaving my car on the side of the driveway. Quickity-quick back to the farm and as I'm driving I text Cyndi that I've got a truck, but I'm going to need some help getting Willow into the trailer to take her to the vet. I end up seeing Gina by their gate when I drive up. I roll down the window and ask if she can help me load up Willow? Gina says she is finishing up and will come right over! I'm off to hook up the trailer, load the pen/cage onto the trailer, and then move Willow towards the pen/cage in anticipation of Gina's arrival!

I hook up the trailer and pull it around beside the barn where the cage is. I load the cage and leave the door open. I'm just finishing strapping down the cage when Gina arrives on the scene. One look at Willow and Gina is very concerned, but up to the challenge. She says she has turned a calf before in a similar situation and thinks she can turn the lamb. Now where are those BBQ gloves... oh yeah, in the garage!! I deliver the gloves to Gina and ask her what I can do. I half expected her to say "Go boil me some water" just like they used to do in the movies whenever they wanted to get rid of some male in the way. They didn't need the water, just to get then out of the way for a few minutes.... instead she said "Hold her still". I had already thought about which pot I would put my water in to boil when she crushed that dream! So I grabbed Willow by an ear and around her neck, whispering as sweetly as I could that she was going to be okay. Gina looked like she didn't know where to start with this project since it was a little overwhelming!

No texts from Cyndi, I think she is trying to leave us alone to do what we can for Willow but I know she is thinking of us, and poor Willow! 

Gina tries her best to help Willow but it does not take her long to decide this is a delivery that is out of her league. So Gina helps me load Willow into the cage on the trailer and I pack everything up and head out the driveway for Dr. Shelton's office (luckily only 5-6 minutes away). As I get to our entrance gate, I see a big semi-truck coming down our narrow street and on the back were two pallets of grass! I met the driver at the intersection of our driveway and the street and quickly jump out to tell him I have a livestock emergency and where I'd like him to place the pallets. He has a small fork lift so there will be no need for him to drive in our pastures or front yard. I tell him thanks and weave around his truck to get to the Vet.

Five minutes later, I'm backing the trailer into the parking lot of the Vet, trying to find a spot that was close to the back doors but that did not block too many cars from getting in or out. I hop out and check Willow to see that she now has about half of the hind legs delivered but she is obviously in distress and not making progress. The legs don't really look like lamb legs, they are swollen and pink with almost no fur and very thin skin. I run around front and into the Veterinary office to tell them I'm here and Ive got my ewe in the back parking lot. I recognize the girl's voice when she says she will tell Dr. Shelton to meet me out back. I go back out to the trailer and Dr. Shelton and an assistant are out at the trailer almost immediately! He looks at the condition of Willow and the unborn lamb and, I can tell from the look on his face, that is was much more than the 'breech' birth I had called about 2 hours ago. 

While he assesses the situation and gets his gloves on, he asks the assistant to go get some lubricant and towels. She runs off and comes back with a gallon jug of lubricating gel, the biggest I've ever seen. Dr. Shelton lubricates everything in sight liberally and then places his hand slowly up into Willow. Poor Willow was already stretched trying to birth this behemoth and so things were 'tight'. More lubricant! Dr. Shelton looks to me and says that the lamb is Hydrocephalus (water on the brain) and is not alive as best he can tell. He says we will need to pull this lamb out of Willow or she will not make it. He asks me to go around to Willow's head and hold her while he tries to pull the lamb out. With another health amount of lub, he starts to pull and it is clear that this will not be easy. Dr. Shelton is about 6' 4' and 250-275 lbs. He is not a small guy and is quite strong. He pulled so hard that I was leaning back to keep him from pulling Willow out of the cage altogether! The thought in my head was that I'm glad I did not waste any time trying to pull this lamb out back at out barn because one, there was only Gina and I, and two, there was absolutely no way I would have ever ever pulled on those legs as hard as Dr. Shelton was doing!

After 3-4 minutes of pulling and turning and pulling some more, the fetus finally came out. Skip to the next paragraph if you want to avoid all the gore and detail! The body came out about twice the size of a normal lamb and it was swollen and full of fluid. It looked more like a baby piglet. what was more shocking was that the lamb was missing its head. Dr. Shelton pushed the body over to the side and said it either never developed a head, or the head was in Willow and would need to be delivered separately. More lub and back in he went. He fishes around for about 30 seconds or so and then pulled out a lamb head that was malformed and way to large for the body. This was a relief to get to this point but I had a feeling there was another lamb in there. Willow comes from a long line of ewes that deliver twins. Her Mother and Grandmother had both delivered twins more than once. So I told Dr. Shelton that I think there is another one in there. He was going to check anyway but I felt like I needed to tell him anyway.....so I did!

Dr. Shelton, recovering from the last "delivery" reached back in and found another little lamb back behind all of the other stuff. He quickly and easily (it seemed) delivered the second lamb. My fears were realized when the lifeless body was delivered, but Dr. Shelton held it up by it's hind legs and squeezed that lamb from the hips to the head with one hand like you would squeeze the water out of a mop! then he thumped the side of the lamb several times pretty strongly and then repeated the mop cleaning process, followed by several more strong thumps on the other side of the lambs chest. There was a momentary pause and then the lamb wiggled a little and started to fight back! In that moment the lamb gasped it's first breath and Dr. Shelton had saved its life! Looking back on the entire day from the the calmness that three days later would bring, I remember that first breath and thought how fortunate I was to witness that first breath, and to see Dr. Shelton perform a miracle with my own eyes. It is something you will never forget....ever! He then asked his assistant to draw a syringe of antibiotics and a dose of pitocin to help Willow deliver the placenta (which she did an hour or so later back at the farm). Willow looked relieved and totally spent!  

I look up from the wiggling little lamb and see Dr. Shelton hurriedly heading back to the clinic. I'm sure he was very late for people who actually had appointments and were waiting! I yelled thank you to him as he briskly walked away. He never turned around, but half waived his hand as he bounded up the backstairs of his clinic. We're not sure how to repay this man for his work, but Cyndi and I will try for many years to come!       

Oh, I almost forgot! I named the lamb.... Angel, because she is a true miracle!

Angel, thriving and happy 🥰

      

Thanks, David, for sharing your story. The birthing by Belle of her twins, along with Willow and her surviving lamb, Angel, reminds us of God’s grace and everlasting hands at work. He brought a miracle to our farm that Monday, no doubt, setting in motion a string of events for success. God’s will for Willow to survive is a reminder that we are not actually directing our own lives…..we just think we are. 

Angel, Red and Purple

Belle and her babies

As Willow heals from her traumatic birthing experience, so does David. Life on a farm, even a small farm such as ours, never settles down. And I’m okay with that - as God is always near to settle our souls and bring peace to us and the farm animals. We are most grateful for a higher power to lean on, as we as humans are simply not enough to lean on one another with our limitations and imperfections. 

All the glory to God, and His innate ability to remind us of His everlasting love,

Cyndi

What about Lulu, you ask? I actually think she may not be pregnant like the others were. No babies from her and none on the horizon, from what we can tell. But really, that doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. Anything can happen around here. Anything.