Birchtree Farm

Penny finally lambed last night between 8 and 9pm. I went out around 8:10 and I could see she was trying to find a spot. She was doing a lot of pawing at the ground and pacing around. The lambs were being pests and every time she would lay down, someone would come over to see what she was doing. I chased Tug away as he was clearly being annoying where the others were just curious. When it got dark I knew the lambs would curl up by their mothers and Penny would get some peace.

So I went back out at 9:15 to take Tessa's bottle out, and there in the glow of the flashlight were two newborn WHITE lambs. They were almost ghostly in the dark, with their solid black mom nickering and licking them dry. I went in and got Ken and we went out and watched them for a while. Both lambs were active and mom was taking care of them, so we left them alone after a few minutes.

One of the lambs has a funny marking under her tail. It's a black patch shaped somewhat like a comma. It's possible that she is actually a black spotted lamb, and not white, but it's just that the white spotting is covering most of her body except for this one area. I knew Penny had the potential to carry spotting, but I wasn't sure about Brendan. As it turns out, he does carry it, so it's possible the lamb is spotted. But sometimes what is thought to be spotting turns out just to be some sort of anomaly, so we'll have to wait and see.

So here are the latest (and last) additions to the flock: