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Here are the photos of Mixie and her ewe lamb, twin to our bottle lamb.

The remaining lambs came in a final rush on Friday. First, I went out in the morning to check on them, and found most everyone up in the hoophouse as it had been raining. I looked at Mixie as I thought she would be the next one to lamb. But then I notice Anya, with some afterbirth hanging, and she moved a bit and there was a new lamb. This one was a ram, and he was smaller, at 6lbs. Anya is Stefi's sister and also a first time mother, and was doing the same thing as Stefi had done - trying to keep track of the lamb so well that every time he tried to find the udder, she would turn around. So went and got Ken and we held Anya still so the lamb could nurse. I also pulled out about an ounce of colostrum that I had collected from Stefi, and gave that to him in a bottle. So that got him started, and then he and Anya figured things out.

Then, Friday afternoon I went out to feed at about 4:30, and Mixie was just starting hard labor. I watched and a nose and two hooves appeared so I left her to it. She pushed for several minutes and I was wondering if I was going to have to help like I had with Stefi, especially as the toes appeared rather large. But I decided to just let her get on with it and not worry unless she hadn't made any progress after half an hour or so. So I went back to the house and came back down no more than 10 minutes later, and there was the lamb, just delivered! Mixie got up, turned around and started talking to her and cleaning her off. It was a big ewe lamb. She was on her feet within 5 minutes and headed towards her mom with one purpose - get to the udder!

Then I got a bit of a surprise. Mixie was freaking out at this *thing* coming at her, and kept backing up, and when the lamb kept coming, she knocked her down, and then proceeded to start licking and cleaning her again. Of course the lamb got back up and headed towards mom, and mom backed up and backed up, and then knocked her sideways and recommenced talking to her and cleaning her.

It seemed as if Mixie was very happy to have her lamb, as long as the lamb remained on the ground and didn't try to touch her!

So, I moved the lamb into the pen, and got Mixie in as well, and tied Mixie up and got the lamb onto a teat, which was not difficult as the lamb was raring to go. Then I let Mixie go again and watched. Lamb was bleating, Mixie would respond and lick her. Lamb would head for a teat, and Mixie would push her over. Oh boy.

I dashed off a quick email to my Icelandic shepherds email list, and back outside to make sure things were OK. It looked like Mixie was done lambing, and Ken got home and so with both of us it was a bit easier to hold Mixie so the lamb could nurse.

Mixie had delivered the ewe lamb at about 5pm. Between 6:30 and 7pm, suddenly another water bag appeared, and seconds later, another lamb just slid out and hit the ground! It happened so fast that Mixie didn't realize she'd had another lamb! We had to clean off the sac so it could breathe and Mixie sniffed it but as her first lamb was up and active and calling, she kept going back to that one, and totally ignored the second. We were able to get about 3 oz of colostrum from Mixie using the EZ milker, and put it in a bottle and gave it to the new lamb. He drank all 3 oz, and we started drying him off with a towel.

Long story short, we ended up bringing him inside and let Jake finish getting him clean and dry. Dog tongues work as well for that as ewe tongues. :-) We tried getting more colostrum from Mixie, but she would not let down any more milk for us. As the ewe lamb was so big and stocky, and had nursed several times when we held Mixie, we decided to just leave them alone for the night. Darkness and quiet apparently did the trick, because by morning they had things worked out.

So now we have a bottle lamb named Oliver. He weighed almost 7lbs at birth, which is a normal size, and would probably have done fine if Mixie had accepted him. By later that night he was following me around the kitchen like a little wind-up toy. The ewe lamb by the way was 9lbs and both of them have very thick fleece. The ewe lamb is black with some fancy white flashing on her head. It looks like someone dripped white paint on top of her head and some of it ran down behind her ears on both sides. The ram is a black mouflon with a lot of golden "frosting". Eventually we will wether him and keep him as a fiber animal.

I don't have any pictures yet of Mixie and the ewe lamb, but here are a couple of Oliver, living the high life.

So we've had this chicken living in the house (see post from March 2nd) for almost a couple months now, and we've been trying to integrate her back into the flock. She had healed from her hawk-inflicted wounds, and grown almost all her feathers back.

A few weeks ago I tried to put her back out with the flock, but they picked her back bare and as she is white, any bit of blood just shows that much better and encourages more picking. Back in the house she came.

This week I have been letting the chickens out of their pen to free-range, since the snow has melted back significantly, and they can get into the woods and scratch around. I figured it was a good time to try to get the house chicken back outside as she was starting to grow new feathers in on her back, and she certainly looks better than a lot of the hens who are nearly bare-backed from being "ridden" by the roosters. With everyone roaming around, they would have other things on their minds besides picking on the "new" chicken, or so I hoped.

However, the roosters notice everything, and a "new" hen was not to be overlooked. It seemed to be going OK the last couple days. I would put her out in her crate where she could see everything but not be harassed right away, and then later in the day I would open the door. She'd come out and immediately the roosters would run over and jump on her to mate, but then they'd get distracted by something and go off elsewhere.

Today however, for some reason they were upset by her being around, and she ended up in the coop hiding in the corner while they did their alarm call over and over and over. By this evening she was again picked bare on her back, and was hiding behind the coop door with her head in the corner when Ken went out to close things up for the night. He brought her inside with him, in her crate. We set out some food and water and she went right to it, as apparently they had not let her eat or drink for most of the day. Then she walked around the living room for a while, and finally settled down behind a chair for a nap.

So, I posted to a couple of local email lists that we had a chicken looking for a new home, either with younger chickens that wouldn't harrass her, or in a pet home, since she's tame enough now that you can walk over to her and pick her up. Within 10 minutes I had a phone call and a new home was arranged. Hurray! I hope she'll do well there. It sounds like it will be a good fit.

OK, I like winter, but I don't really like temps below 20 degrees F. I don't really see a need for anything colder than that, know what I mean Vern? Twenty degrees is plenty cold enough to get snow, which the skiers like, and it makes everything look pretty, but anything lower than that is really not necessary, IMHO. Today the temperature is around 9 degrees, but the windchill factor makes it feel like -5 or -10F.

The chickens don't come out in this weather. If they come out at all, they quickly change their little minds and go back in. The sheep? Do. Not. Care. After all, they are wearing 3-4 inches of wool, and they have a bedding pack which is composting and generating its own heat. It's sort of like radiant floor heating for your barn. I know because I went out with the ewes yesterday and sat down in their shelter for a bit, and my fanny was actually warm. Later, we pulled up a layer of bedding to move some out to the hoophouse for the rams, and you could see parts of it steaming in the cold air and if you put your hand down, it was pleasantly warm. But even when the sheep venture out of the shelter, you get the feeling that they hardly notice the cold. In fact, they're downright frisky. One of the ewes did a leap in the air yesterday like a gazelle, just because she could.

What was really weird yesterday was our sighting of FOUR BLUEBIRDS. Yes, the kind that people put up special birdhouses for and try to get pairs to breed in. The state bird of NY. We saw them yesterday, while it was snowing, sitting in our crabapple tree where we have the bird feeders. We did a quick search and found that occassionally bluebirds do overwinter in the north, and apparently these four figured they were tough enough to stick it out. I wonder what they're thinking of that decision now? We found recipes online for making your own bluebird food, and plans for mealworm feeders. We have suet cakes out, so that will have to do for now. But we haven't seen them again, so they may have moved on (they're probably thinking "Florida or bust!" though it's a bit late to migrate).

What's really annoying about cold weather? Hauling 5 gallon buckets of water out of the house every day. In my next barn, I want a frost-free spigot. Thankfully we do have a de-icer for the big tank, it's just that while the rams are inside, we have to carry water for them. In fact, when they go out to the hoophouse pasture, we'll have to carry water out there since they won't have access to the big tank. Something to look forward to! Maybe it will be a little warmer by then.